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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


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The Shipwreck 


(Page 219 .) 

























































APPLETON S’ SCHOOL READERS. 


THE 


FIFTH EEADEB. 


BY 

WILLIAM T^HARRIS, A. M., LL. D„ 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, ST. LOUIS, MO. 

ANDREW jAlCKOFF, A. M., 

SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION, CLEVELAND, OHIO. 

MARK BAILEY, A. M., 


INSTRUCTOR IN ELOCUTION, YALE COLLEGE. 


/ 




> ) 

> ) 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 

1878 . ‘ 








COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1878. 




i 


t f 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. How I learned to write Prose. B. Franklin . 9 

II. Translation of the Twenty-third Psalm. Joseph Addison. 13 

III. Intelligent Reading. Mark Bailey. 15 

IV. Thanatopsis. W. C. Bryant. 17 

V. Confessions of a Bashful Man. Anonymous. 20 

VI. Adieu td my Native Land. Lord Byron. 24 

VII. The Battle of the Ants... H. D. Thoreau. 2 7 

VIII. The Soldier’s Dream. Thomas Campbell. 31 

IX. Dr. Primrose in Prison. 0. Goldsmith. 33 

X. The Hermit. James Beattie. 36 

XI. The Survivors of the Battle of Bunker Hill. D. Webster. 38 

XII. Ode—How sleep the Brave !. William Collins. 41 

XIII. The Death of Le Fevre. L. Sterne. 42 

XIV. Matter-of-Fact and Earnest Ideas. Mark Bailey. 44 

XV. The Battle of Hastings. Charles Dickens. 48 

XVI. An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. 0. Goldsmith. 54 

XVII. The Nightingale. S. H. Peabody. 56 

XVIII. Winter.■.. William Shakespeare. 58 

XIX. Dotheboys Hall. Charles Dickens. 59 

XX. An April Day.. Anonymous. 63 

XXI. God’s Dominion and Man’s Dependence. 

Psalms XXIV. and XC. — Bible. 65 

XXII. The Destruction of Sennacherib. Lord Byron. 67 

XXIII. How to render Noble Ideas. Mark Bailey. 69 

























4 


FIFTH READER. 


XXIV. Earthquakes and Volcanoes. Edward Hitchcock. 

XXV. Sunday. George Herbert. 

XXVI. The Rescue of a Kitten... H. Fielding. 

XXVII. Sunset on the Border. ... Sir Walter Scott. 

XXVIII. The Coyote. S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain). 

XXIX. For a’ that, and a’ that. Robert Burns. 

XXX. How to render Joyous Ideas. Mark Bailey. 

XXXI. Mignon’s Song. Goethe. 

XXXII. The Thirteen Colonies. T. W. Higginson. 

XXXIII. The Vanity of Human Pride. William Knox. 

XXXIV. Frozen Words. Joseph Addison. 

XXXV. What constitutes a State ?. Sir William Jones. 

XXXVI. The Effect of Paul’s Preaching at Ephesus. 

Acts xix. 23-41.— Bible. 

XXXVII. The Coronach. Sir Waite,r Scott. 

XXXVIII. How to render Sad Ideas. Mark Bailey. 

XXXIX. The Pauper’s Death-bed.. Caroline B. Southey. 

XL., Mrs. Caudle urging the Need of Spring Clothing. 

I). W. Jerrold. 

XLI. Under the Greenwood Tree... William Shakespeare. 

XLII. Mexico as first seen by the Spaniards. W. H. Prescott. 

XLIII. Marmion and Douglas. Sir Walter Scott. 

XLIV. Ascent of Mount Ktaadn. H. D. Thoreau. 

XLV. Virtue.£. Herbei-t. 

XkVI. Rules of Behavior. George Washington. 

XLVII. Morning Sounds .. James Beattie. 

XLVIII. Dialogue with the Gout. B. Franklin. 

XLIX. Absalom.W. P. Willis. 

L. The Blind Preacher. \y, Wirt. 

LI. America. Bishop Bei'kelcy. 

LII. The Ascent to the Eagle’s Nest. J Wilson. 

LIII. The Descent from the Eagle’s Nest. J, Wilson. 

LIV. The Hot Season.0. W. Holmes. 


LV. How to render Scornful and Sarcastic Ideas. Mark Bailey. 
LVI. Hymn to the Night. H. W. Longfellow. 


PAGE 

72 

75 

77 

79 

81 

83 

85 

88 

91 

93 

96 

99 

101 

104 

106 

108 

110 

114 

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121 

127 

128 
134 
136 
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144 

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148 
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157 
159 
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FIFTH READER. 


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PAGE 

LVII. Speech of Brutus. William Shakespeare. 162 

LVIII. We watched her Breathing. T. Hood. 164 

LIX. In the Maine Woods. H. D. Thoreau. 165 

LX. Marco Bozzaris. Fitz-Greene Halleck. 169 

LXI. Giant Despair. John Bunyan. 171 

LXII. Escape from Doubting Castle. John Bunyan. 176 

LXIII. Mark Antony’s Oration. William Shakespeare. 179 

LXIY. Sancho Panza’s Government. Cwvantes. 186 

LXY. Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.. A. Tennyson. 190 

LXYI. The Charge of the Light Brigade. W. H. Russell. 193 

LXVII. Winter. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 195 

LXVIII. The Mound-builders. T. W. Higginson. 196 

LXIX. The Deserted Village. 0. Goldsmith. 200 

LXX. The Yalley of Humiliation. John Bunyan. 204 

LXXI. The Village Preacher. O. Goldsmith. 207 

LXXII. How to render Humorous Ideas. Mark Bailey. 209 

LXXIII. The Grave. Montgomery. 212 

LXXIV. The Murderer cannot keep his Secret. D. Webster. 215 

LXXY. The Shipwreck. Lord Byron. 219 

LXXVI. Hidden Beauties of Classic Authors. N. P. Willis. 221 

LXXVII. The Launch of the Ship. H. W. Longfellow. 222 

LXXVIII. Building the House. H. D. Thoreau. 224 

LXXIX. Break, break, break. A. Tennyson. 227 

LXXX. The Ponds of Concord. H. D. Thoreau. 228 

LXXXI. Lochinvar. Sir Walter Scott. 232 

LXXXII. How to render Impassioned Ideas. Mark Bailey. 234 

LXXXIII. The House of Usher. E. A. Poe. 237 

LXXXIY. The Haunted Palace. E. A. Poe. 241 

LXXXY. A Rill from the Town Pump. N. Hawthorne. 243 

LXXXVI. The Eve before Waterloo. Lord Byron. 249 

LXXXVII. The Battle of Waterloo. Victor Hugo. 252 

LXXXVIII. The Defeat at Waterloo. Victor Hugo. 257 

LXXXIX. The Sublimity of God. Psalm CIV.—Bible. 263 

XC. Poetic Reading. I. Mark Bailey. 266 

XCI. Man’s Physical and Mental Superiority. D. Webster. 274 
































6 


FIFTH READER. 


PAGE 

XCII. Each and All. R. W. Emerson. 275 

XCIII. Rip Van Winkle’s Sleep. W. Irving. 278 

XCIY. Rip Yan Winkle’s Return. W. Irving. 283 

XCY. Rip Yan Winkle’s Recognition. W. Irving. 287 

XCVI. Bannockburn. Robert Burns. 291 

XCVII. The Liberty of the Press . Milton. 293 

XCVIII. Poetic Reading. II. Mark Bailey. 295 

XCIX. Puck and the Fairy. William Shakespeare. 300 

C. The Influence of the Sun. John Tyndall. 302 

Cl. Poetic Reading. Ill. Mark Bailey. 306 

CII. The Coral Grove. James G. Pei'cival. 313 

CIII. The Glory of God. Psalm XIX. — Bible. 315 

CIY. The Happy Yalley. Samuel Johnson. 317 

CV. The Dream of Clarence. William Shakespeare. 320 

CYI. The Time for Moral and Intellectual Culture. 

Thomas Be Quincey. 324 

CYII. The Cataract of Lodore. Robert Southey. 327 

CYIII. My Oratorical Experience. N. Hawthorne. 332 

CIX. Prince Henry and Falstaff. William Shakespeare. 335 

CX. Bugle-Song. A. Tennyson. 341 

CXI. The Mock-Turtle’s Story. Lewis Carroll. 342 

CXII. Evening. 0. W. Holmes. 345 

CXIII. Benefits of Inventions and Discoveries. J. C. Calhoun. 348 

CXIV. The Bivouac of the Dead. Theodore O'Hara. 351 

CXV. Influence of the Translation of the Bible upon 

Literature. William Hazlitt. 364 

CXVI. Song of the Silent Land. J. G. von Salis. 356 

CXVII. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Anonymous. 357 

CXVIII. Darkness, a Dream... Lord Byron. 362 

CXIX. God’s Mightiness and Tenderness. 

Psalms CII. and CIII. — Bible. 365 

CXX. Washington. Thomas Jefferson. 367 

CXXI. Decoration of the Soldiers’ Graves. H. Timrod. 370 

CXXII. The Way to Wealth. B. Franklin. 371 

CXXIII. The Reaper and the Flowers. II W. Longfellow. 377 































FIFTH READER. 


7 


PAGE 

CXXIV. The Vision of Mirza. Joseph Addison. 379 

CXXV. The Last Man. Thomas Campbell. 385 

CXXVI. Good Manners at the Table. J. W. Phelps. 387 

CXXVII. New-Year’s Eve. . A. Tennyson. 392 

CXXVIII. Migration to Kentucky. J. J. Audubon. 393 

CXXIX. The Problem... R. W. Emerson. 397 

CXXX. The Greatness of Napoleon. W. E. Channing. 400 

CXXXL The Desert. Anna C. Brackett. 402 

CXXXII. Candles not used by the Ancients.. Thomas Be Quincey. 404 

CXXXIII. Rienzi’s Address to the Romans. Mary R. Milford. 407 

CXXXIV. Liberty or Death !. Patrick Henry. 409 

CXXXV. The Sky-Lark. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 413 

CXXXVI. Fossil Poetry. R. C. Trench. 416 

CXXXVII. L’Allegro. . .John Milton. 419 

CXXXVIII. A Sermon of Old Age. Theodore Parker. 422 

CXXXIX. II Penseroso. John Milton. 426 

CXL. Garden Plants. A. B. Alcolt. 431 

CXLI. The Ancient Mariner. S. T. Coleiidge. 434 

CXLII. Man a Tool-using Animal. Thomas Carlyle. 444 

CXLIII. Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 

Alfred Tennyson. 447 

CXLIV. Exequies of Mignon. Goethe. 451 

CXLV. The Closing Scene. T. B. Read. 456 

Spelling-Lessons. 461 


































































FIFTH READER. 


I.—HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE PROSE. 

1. From a child I was fond of reading, and all the 
little money that came into my hands was laid out in 
hooks. Pleased with the “ Pilgrim’s Progress,” my first 
collection was of John Bunyan’s works, in separate little 
volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy 
Burton’s “ Historical Collections ”; they were small 
books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. 

2. “ Plutarch’s Lives ” I read abundantly, and I still 
think that time spent to great advantage. There was 
also a book of De Foe’s, called “ An Essay on Projects,” 
and another of Dr. Mather’s, called “ Essays to do Good/’ 
which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an 
influence on some of the principal future events of my 
life. 

3. This bookish inclination at length determined my 
father to make me a printer, though he had already one 
son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother 
James returned from England with a press and letters, 
to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better 
than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the 
sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an incli- 



10 


FIFTH READER. 


nation, my father was impatient to have me bound to my 
brother. 

4. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, 
and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve 
years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was 
twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed jour¬ 
neyman’s wages during the last year. In a little time I 
made great proficiency in the business, and became a use¬ 
ful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. 

5. An acquaintance with the apprentices of book¬ 
sellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small book, 
which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I 
sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, 
when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be 
returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed 
or wanted. 

6. After some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Mat¬ 
thew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and 
who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, 
invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such 
books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, 
and made some little pieces. My brother, thinking it 
might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on 
composing occasional ballads. 

7. One was called the “ Lighthouse Tragedy,” and 
contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthi- 
lake, with his two daughters; the other was a sailor’s 
song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. 
They were wretched stuff, in the Grub Street ballad 
style; and, when they were printed, he sent me about 
town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event 
being recent, having made a great noise. 


FIFTH READER. 


11 

8. This flattered my vanity; but my father discour¬ 
aged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me 
verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being 
a poet—most probably a very bad one; but as prose¬ 
writing has been of great use to me in the course of my 
life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I 
shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what 
little ability I have in that way. 

9. About this time I met with an odd volume of the 
Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen 
any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was 
much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, 
and wislied, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I 
took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the 
sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and 
then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the 
papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at 
length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in 
any suitable words that should come to hand. 

10. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, 
discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I 
found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recol¬ 
lecting and using them, which I thought I should have 
acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; 
since the continual occasion for words of the same import, 
but of different length, to suit the measure, or of differ¬ 
ent sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a 
constant necessity of searching for variety, and also 
have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make 
me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales 
and turned them into verse, and, after a time, when I 
had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back 
again. 


12 


FIFTH READER. 


11. I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints 
into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to re¬ 
duce them into the best order, before I began to form the 
full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach 
me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By com¬ 
paring my w T ork afterward with the original, I discovered 
many faults, and amended them; but I sometimes had 
the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of 
small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the 
method or the language; and this encouraged me to 
think I might possibly, in time, come to be a tolerable 
English writer—of which I was extremely ambitious. 

12. My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print 
a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in Amer¬ 
ica, and was called the New England Cour ant. He had 
some ingenious men among his friends, who amused 
themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which 
gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these 
gentlemen often visited us. 

13. Hearing their conversation, and their accounts of 
the approbation their papers were received with, I was 
excited to try my hand among them ; but, being still a 
boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to 
printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to 
be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing 
an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of 
the printing-house. 

11. It was found in the morning, and communicated 
to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They 
read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the 
exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approba¬ 
tion, and that, in their different guesses at the author, 
none were named but men of some character among us 


FIFTH READER. 


13 


for learning and ingenuity. I suppose, now, that I was 
rather lucky in my judges, and that, perhaps, they were 
not really so very good ones as I then esteemed them. 

_ Benjamin Franklin. 

For Preparation. —I. This extract is taken from “ Franklin’s Auto¬ 
biography.” The method here described has been followed by many who 
have “ learned to write prose.” Dr. Johnson, the celebrated critic, said, 
“ Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and 
elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes 
of Addison.” The best of Addison’s essays appeared in the Spectator, a 
daily periodical edited by himself and Steele, and the most famous that 
ever appeared in England. “ Plutarch’s Lives ” (of the great men of Greece 
and Home). “ De Foe ”—have you read his “ Robinson Crusoe ” ? “ Grub 

Street ” (in London, inhabited by writers of popular ballads, histories, etc.; 
any mean production was called “ Grub Street ”). 

II. De-llght'-ed, suit'-a-ble, read'-i-ness, a-e-quired', fan'-^y-ing, 
dis-gul§e', print'-ing-house, book'-sell-erg, b£g'-gar§, rhyme (rim). 

III. Explain the use of capitals in the words New England Courant , 
“ Essays to do Good,” Boston, English, Dr. Mathers. 

IV. What is the difference in meaning between principal and principle ? 
Explain the meaning, in your own words, of hankering, apprehended, in¬ 
dentures, proficiency, frequented, occasional (for occasions), tolerable, in¬ 
genious, commented. 

V. Dr. Franklin’s style is famous for its simplicity, directness, and 
idiomatic strength. It is, however, possible to find many slight blemishes, 
as, for example, where he sits up “the greatest (greater?) part of the night,” 
or returns the borrowed books “ soon and clean ” (soon and in a clean con¬ 
dition ; the “ and ” should not connect an adverb and an adjective). 


ii.—TRANSLATION OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 

1. The Lord my pasture shall prepare, 

And feed]me with!a shepherd’s care ; 

His presence shall \ my wants .supply, 

And guardjme withja watcl^ful eye; J 
My nootjday walksjHe shall/attend, 

And allj my midnight hours defend. 




14 


FIFTH READER. 


2. When in the sultry glebe I faint, 

Or on the thirsty mountain pant, 

To fertile vales and dewy meads 
My weary, wand’ring steps He leads; 

Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow, 

Amid the verdant landscape flow. 

3. Though in the paths of death I tread, 

With gloomy horrors overspread, 

My steadfast heart shall feel no ill, 

For thou, O Lord, art with me still I 
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, 

And guide me through the dreadful shade. 

4. Though in a bare and rugged way, 

Through devious, lonely wilds, I stray, 

Thy bounty shall my wants beguile; 

The barren wilderness shall smile, 

With sudden greens and herbage crowned, 
And streams shall murmur all around. 

Joseph Addison. 


For Preparation. —I. A paraphrase, rather than a “translation,” of 
the Twenty-third Psalm. The 1st verse corresponds to the first as num¬ 
bered in King James’s version of the Bible; the 2d to the second and 
third; the 3d to the fourth; the 4th to the fifth and sixth. Is the im¬ 
agery of this psalm suggestive of the city, or of the country ? What em¬ 
ployment and surroundings ? 

II. Sh&p'-herd (-erd), guard (gard), guide (gid). 

III. Mark off into feet the lines of the 1st stanza, showing the syllables 
where the accent falls. 

IV. Glebe, meads, crook, beguile, sultry, “ sudden greens,” “ the barren 
wilderness shall smile.” 

V. Compare this translation with King James’s version, and make note 
of the expressions wherein the latter is stronger or more vivid than the 
former; also wherein the former is more systematic. Contrast the force 
of expression in “ Though in the paths of death I tread ” and “ Though I 



FIFTH READER. 


16 


walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” What thoughts in either 
version are not expressed at all in the other ? A distinguished preacher 
says of this psalm: “ David has left no sweeter psalm than the short 
Twenty-third. It is but a moment’s opening of his soul; but, as when one, 
walking the winter street, sees the door opened for some one to enter, and 
the red light streams a moment forth, and the forms of gay children are 
running to greet the comer, and genial music sounds, though the door shuts 
and leaves night black, yet it cannot shut back again all that the eye, the 
ear, the heart, and the imagination have seen; so in this psalm, though it 
is but a moment’s opening of the soul, are emitted truths of peace and con¬ 
solation that will never be absent from the world. It has charmed more 
griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world. It has remanded to 
their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sor¬ 
rows, than there are sands on the sea-shore. It has comforted the noble 
host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It 
has poured balm and consolation into the hearts of the sick, of captives in 
dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. 
Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read to them ; ghastly hospitals 
have been illuminated; it has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, 
and, like Peter’s angel, led him forth in imagination, and sung him back to 
his home again.” 


III.—INTELLIGENT READING. 

Our earlier* lessons in Elocution have been mainly 
devoted to tlie analysis and expression of the sense. We 
have thus tried to secure, first of all, intelligent reading , 
as something of foremost importance in itself considered, 
and as the sensible foundation of emotional expression 
and poetic reading. 

All good elocution must be founded on good think¬ 
ing. This leads to appreciation—that is, to right feeling; 
and right thinking and feeling lead to the best vocal ex¬ 
pression. 

Now, we begin to observe and to think definitely only 
when we begin to distinguish one thing from another; 
and our thinking improves in the same ratio as this power 


* The lessons given in the Third and Fourth Readers. 



16 


FIFTH READER. 


of differentiating (seeing the differences of things) be¬ 
comes more accurate and complete. 

For example: to the unthinking, all the books in a 
library seem much alike; but the observing reader soon 
learns that each individual book differs from every other; 
and, if he would give a clear description of any given 
book, he must call our attention not to what is common 
to all books, but to the points wdierein this given book 
differs from the other books. 

Or, in giving a clear idea of any character in history, 
the writer speaks not of such-common traits and deeds as 
were shared with the many, but of those peculiar attri¬ 
butes and acts which distinguish him from all others— 
those things which characterize him as an individual. 

And so, to give a clear picture of any kind on any 
subject, the author must seize on the special points which 
individuate it. 

A favorite means of making an idea more vivid and 
distinct (especially in poetry and eloquence), is by com¬ 
paring it with something similar, but more familiar and 
striking. But the most distinctive way of expressing an 
idea is by contrasting it with its opposite. 

These distinctive points of good thinking and 

WRITING ARE THE IMPORTANT IDEAS WHICH IN ELOCUTION 
DEMAND SPECIAL EMPHASIS AND EXPRESSION. 

But these ideas are innumerable; and how can we 
ever learn to read well the hundredth part of them ? 

By grouping similar ideas into one class; so that, when 
we learn to read understandingly a few representative 
ideas of any given class, we learn essentially how to read 
all ideas of that general kind. 

This classification must be purely elocutionary. By 
“ similar ideas,” we mean such as have naturally similar 
vocal expression. 


FIFTH READER. 


17 


IV.—THANATOPSIS. 

1. To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language : for his gayer hours 

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. 

2. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, 

Go forth under the open sky and list 
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— 
Comes a still voice: yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist 
Thy image. 


3. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix forever with the elements— 

To be a brother to the insensible rock, 

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 


18 


FIFTH HEADER. 


Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

4. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, 

The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good— 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 

All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun—the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between— 

The venerable woods—rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste— 

Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. 


5. The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound 
Save his own dasliings—yet the dead are there; 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. 

6. So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living, and no friend 


FIFTH READER. 


19 


Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men— 

The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man— 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 
By those who in their turn shall follow them. 

7. So live that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

William Cullen Bryant. 


For Preparation.—I. Written when the poet was at the age of nine¬ 
teen. Point out on the map that part of the Great Desert that extends 
into Barca;—the Oregon River (now called the Columbia). “ Thanatopsis ” 
(thanatos = death ; opsis = seeing: contemplation of death). 

II. Pa'-tri-archs, el'-o-quence, sSpMil-eher, an'-gient (an'shent), 
tomb (toom), dun'-geon (dun'jun), wraps (raps), phan'-tom (fan'tom), 
m8ad'-ow§, bo'-§om. 

III. All-beholding, rock-ribbed, quarry-slave, gray-headed. Explain the 
use of the hyphen in each of these words. 

IV. Pensive, melancholy waste, summons, drapery, unfaltering, decora¬ 
tions. 



20 


FIFTH READER. 


V. “Various language ”—a variety of languages, or a language varying 
only in its tone of sentiment ? “ Surrendering up thine individual being ”— 
is the individuality in the body, or in the mind ? “ Complaining brooks ”— 

why called complaining ? “ Still lapse of ages ” (silent flight of time). 

Make a list of expressions used in this piece to denote death, and to describe 
its accompaniments (e. g., “last bitter hour,” “stern agony,” etc.). 


V.—CONFESSIONS OF A BASHFUL MAN. 

1. You must know that in my person I am tall and 
thin, with a fair complexion and light flaxen hair; but 
of such extreme sensibility to shame, that on the smallest 
subject of confusion my blood all rushes into my cheeks. 
Having been sent to the university, the consciousness of 
my unhappy failing made me avoid society, and I became 
enamored of a college life. But from that peaceful re¬ 
treat I was called by the death of my father and of a rich 
uncle, who left me a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. 

2 . I now purchased an estate in the country, and my 
company was much courted by the surrounding families, 
especially by such as had marriageable daughters. Though 
I wished to accept their offered friendship, I was forced 
repeatedly to excuse myself, under the pretence of not 
being quite settled. Often when I have ridden or walked 
with full intention of returning their visits, my heart has 
failed me as I approached their gates, and I have returned 
homeward, resolving to try again the next day. Deter¬ 
mined, however, at length to conquer my timidity, I ac¬ 
cepted of an invitation to dine with one, whose open, 
easy manner left me no room to doubt a cordial welcome. 

3. Sir Thomas Friendly, who lives about two miles 
distant, is a baronet, with an estate joining to that I pur¬ 
chased. He had two sons and five daughters, all grown 



FIFTH READER. 


21 


up, and living with their mother and a maiden sister of 
Sir Thomas’s at Friendly Hall. 

4. Conscious of my unpolished gait, I have, for some 
time past, taken private lessons of a professor, who 
teaches “ grown gentlemen to dance ”; and though I at 
first found wondrous difficulty in the art he taught, my 
knowledge of mathematics was of prodigious use in 
teaching me the equilibrium of my body, and the due 
adjustment of the centre of gravity to the five posi¬ 
tions. 

5. Having acquired the art of walking without totter¬ 
ing, and learned to make a bow, I boldly ventured to 
obey the baronet’s invitation to a family dinner, not 
doubting but my new acquirements would enable me to 
see the ladies with tolerable intrepidity; but, alas! how 
vain are all the hopes of theory when unsupported by 
habitual practice! 

6. As I approached the house, a dinner-bell alarmed 
my fears, lest I had spoiled the dinner by want of punc¬ 
tuality. Impressed with this idea, I blushed the deepest 
crimson, as my name was repeatedly announced by the 
several livery-servants who ushered me into the library, 
hardly knowing what or whom I saw. At my first en¬ 
trance, I summoned up all my fortitude, and made my 
new-learned bow to Lady Friendly; but, unfortunately, 
in bringing my left foot to the third position, I trod upon 
the gouty toe of poor Sir Thomas, who had followed close 
at my heels, to be the nomenclator of the family. 

7. The confusion this occasioned in me is hardly to 
be conceived, since none but bashful men can judge of 
my distress. The baronet’s politeness by degrees dissi¬ 
pated my concern; and I was astonished to see how far 


22 


FIFTH READER. 


good-breeding could enable him to suppress his feelings, 
and appear with perfect ease after so painful an acci¬ 
dent. 

8. The cheerfulness of her ladyship and the familiar 
chat of the young ladies insensibly led me to throw off 
my reserve and sheepishness, till, at length, I ventured to 
join the conversation, and even to start fresh subjects. 
The library being richly furnished with books in elegant 
bindings, I conceived Sir Thomas to be a man of liter¬ 
ature, and ventured to give my opinion concerning the 
several editions of the Greek classics, in which the baro¬ 
net’s opinion exactly coincided with my own. 

9. To this subject I was led by observing an edition 
of Xenophon, in sixteen volumes, which (as I never before 
had heard of such a thing) greatly excited my curiosity, 
and I rose up to examine what it could be. Sir Thomas 
saw what I was about, and, as I supposed, willing to save 
me trouble, rose to take the book, which made me more 
eager to prevent him, and hastily laying my hand on the 
first volume, I pulled it forcibly; but, lo! instead of 
books, a board, which, by leather and gilding, had been 
made to look like sixteen volumes, came tumbling down, 
and, unluckily, pitched upon a Wedgwood inkstand on 
the table under it. 

10. In vain did Sir Thomas assure me there was no 
harm. I saw the ink streaming from an inlaid table on 
the Turkey carpet, and, scarcely knowing what I did, 
attempted to stop its progress with my cambric handker¬ 
chief. In the height of this confusion, we were informed 
that dinner was served up; and I, with joy, perceived 
that the bell, which at first had so alarmed my fears, was 
only the half-hour dinner-bell. 


FIFTH READER. 


23 


11. I will not relate the several blunders which I 
made during the first course, or the distress occasioned 
by iny being desired to carve a fowl, or help to various 
dishes that stood near me—spilling a sauce-boat, and 
knocking down a salt-cellar ; rather let me hasten to the 
second course, when fresh disasters overwhelmed me quite. 

12. I had a piece of rich, sweet pudding on my fork, 
when Miss Louisa Friendly begged to trouble me for a 
pigeon that stood near me. In my haste, scarce knowing 
what I did, I whipped the pudding into my mouth, hot 
as a burning coal. It was impossible to conceal my 
agony; my eyes were starting from their sockets. At 
last, in spite of shame and resolution, I was obliged to 
drop the cause of torment on my plate. 

13. Sir Thomas and the ladies all compassionated 
my misfortune, and each advised a different application. 
One recommended oil, another water, but all agreed 
that wine was the best, for drawing out fire ; and a glass 
of sherry was brought me from the side-board, which I 
snatched up with eagerness; but, oh ! how shall I tell 
the sequel ? 

14. Whether the butler by accident mistook or pur¬ 
posely designed to drive me mad, he gave me the strong¬ 
est brandy, with which I filled my mouth, already flayed 
and blistered. Totally unused to every kind of ardent 
spirits, with my tongue, throat, and palate as raw as beef, 
what could I do ? I could not swallow; and, clapping 
my hands upon my mouth, the liquor spurted through 
my fingers like a fountain, over all the dishes, and I was 
crushed by bursts of laughter from all quarters. In vain 
did Sir Thomas reprimand the servants, and Lady Friend¬ 
ly chide her daughters; for the measure of my shame 
and their diversion was not yet complete. 


24 


FIFTH READER. 


15. To relieve me from the intolerable state of per¬ 
spiration which this accident had caused, without con¬ 
sidering what I did, I wiped my face with that ill-fated 
handkerchief, which was still wet from the consequences 
of the fall of Xenophon, and covered all my features 
with streaks of ink in every direction. The baronet 
himself could not support the shock, but joined his lady 
in the general laugh; while I sprang from the table in 
despair, rushed out of the house, and ran home in an 
agony of confusion and disgrace which the most poign¬ 
ant sense of guilt could not have excited. 


For Preparation.—I. “ Pitched upon a Wedgwood inkstand ” (the fa¬ 
mous earthen-ware invented by Josiah Wedgwood). “Salt-cellar” (11) 
(bad omen?). 

II. -Oom-plex'-ioii (-plek'shun), -eor'-di-al, fen'-ter, o-pin'-ion (-yun), 
pig'-eon (pij'un), Xen'-o-phon. 

III. Change “ their gates ” so that each word will refer to one object. 
Meaning of ward in “ homeward ” ? Should we say “ rose up ” (9) ? 

IV. Enamored, courted, timidity, estate, prodigious, equilibrium, in¬ 
trepidity, theory, punctuality, fortitude, editions, classics, fomentation, cal¬ 
dron, palate, flayed, intolerable, poignant, nomenclator, “ ardent spirits.” 

V. How much is thirty thousand pounds in our money ? “ Wondrous 

difficulty ” and “ prodigious use ”—are those expressions accurate and ele¬ 
gant here ? What is there ridiculous in the assertion that his knowledge 
of mathematics helped him in learning to dance ? and in the fact that the 
baronet’s opinion coincided exactly with his (8) ? Relate the several steps 
by which these adventures reach the climax of absurdity. 


VI.—ADIEU TO MY NATIVE LAND. 

1. Adieu! adieu! my native sliore 
Fades o’er the waters blue; 

The niglit-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 
And shrieks the wild sea-mew. 





FIFTH READER. 2S 

Yon sun that sets upon the sea, 

We follow in his flight; 

Farewell awhile to him and thee, 

My native land—good-night! 

2. A few short hours, and he will rise 

To give the morrow birth ; 

And I shall hail the main and skies, 

But not my mother’earth. 

Deserted is my own good hall, 

Its hearth is desolate ; 

Wild weeds are gathering on the wall; 

My dog howls at the gate. 

3. Come hither, come hither, my little page: 

Why dost thou weep and wail ? 

Or dost thou dread the billows’ rage, 

Or tremble at the gale ? 

But dash the tear-drop from thine eye! 

Our ship is swift and strong; 

Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly 
More merrily along. 

4. “ Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 

I fear not wave nor wind; 

Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I 
Am sorrowful in mind; 

For I have from my father gone, 

A mother whom I love, 

And have no friend save these alone, 

But thee, and One above. 

5. “ My father blessed me fervently, 

Yet did not much complain ; 

But sorely will my mother sigh 
Till I come back again.” 

2 


26 


FIFTH READER. 


Enough, enough, my little lad! 

Such tears become thine eye; 

If I thy guileless bosom had, 

Mine own would not be dry. 

6. Come hither, hither, my stanch yeoman : 

Why dost thou look so pale? 

Or dost thou dread a French foeman, 

Or shiver at the gale ? 

“ Deem’st thou I tremble for my life ? 

Sir Childe, I’m not so weak; 

But thinking on an absent wife 
Will blanch a faithful cheek. 

7. “ My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, 

Along the bordering lake, 

And when they on their father call, 

What answer shall she make ? ” 

Enough, enough, my yeoman good: 

Thy grief let none gainsay ; 

But I, who am of lighter mood, 

Will laugh to flee away. 

8. And now I’m in the world alone, 

Upon the wide, wide sea ; 

But why should I for others groan, 

When none will sigh for me ? 

Perchance my dog will whine in vain, 

Till fed by stranger hands; 

But long ere I come back again 
He’d tear me where he stands. 

9. With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go, 

Athwart the foaming brine; 

Nor care what land thou bear’st me to, 

So not again to mine. 


FIFTH READER. 


27 


Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves! 

And when you fail my sight, 

Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves! 

My native land, good night! 

_ Lord Byron. 

For Preparation.—I. From “ Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto I., 
xiii. Sir Childe takes his harp at sunset as he sails away from England. 
Contrast the patriotism of The Burial of Sir John Moore (Fourth Reader) 
with the tone of this in verse 9. 

II. A-dieu' (-du'), shrieks (shreeks), hearth (harth), fal'-eon (faw'kn), 
e-nough' (-nuf), yeo'-man, foe'-man, grief, laugh (laf). 

III. Meaning or effect of est in fleetest;—of st in dost;—m in whom;— 
of the change of ou in thou to ee in thee. “ One above ”—why capital ? 
Explain “ he’d.” Whose words are denoted by the marks “ ” in stanzas 
4, 6, 6, and 1 ? 

IV. Meaning of or in “ or dost thou tread ” (3)—(whether). Explain 
sea-mew, main, mother, earth, fervently, guileless, athwart, foaming brine. 

V. “ Follow in his flight ” (1)—which way is he sailing then ? “ My 

dog howls,” etc.—why ? Does gone rhyme with alone (stanza 4) perfectly ? 
What do you think of the use of you and ye (9) together in the same ad¬ 
dress ? What has been the character of the man who (9 and 10) leaves his 
native land with such feelings ? Note the confession in the last two lines of 5. 


VII.—THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS. 

1. One day when 1 went out to my wood-pile, or 
rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the 
one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, 
and black, fiercely contending with one another. Hav¬ 
ing once got hold, they never let go, but struggled and 
wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. 

2. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the 
chips were covered with such combatants; that it was 
not a duellum , but a helium —a war between two races of 




28 


FIFTH READER. 


ants, the red always pitted against the black, and fre¬ 
quently two'red ones to one black. The legions of these 
myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood- 
yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead 
a*nd dying, both red and black. 

3. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, 
the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was 
raging; .internecine war—the red republicans on the one 
hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every 
side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without 
any noise that I could hear; and human soldiers never 
fought so resolutely. 

4. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each 
other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, 
now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down 
or life went out. The smaller red champion had fast¬ 
ened himself like a vise to his adversary’s front, and 
through all the tumblings on that field never for an in¬ 
stant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, 
having already caused the other to go by the board; 
while the stronger black one dashed him from side to 
side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divest¬ 
ed him of several of his members. 

5. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. 
Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It 
was evident that their battle-cry was “ Conquer, or die ! ” 
In the meanwhile, there came along a single red ant on 
the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, 
who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken 
part in the battle—probably the latter, for he had lost 
none of his limbs—whose mother had charged him to 
return with his shield upon it. 


FIFTH READER. 


29 


6. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nour¬ 
ished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or 
rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from 
afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red. 
He drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard 
within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching 
his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and 
commenced his operations near the root of his right fore¬ 
leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; 
and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind 
of attraction had been invented which put all other locks 
and cements to shame. 

7. I should not have wondered by this time to find 
that they had their respective musical bands stationed on 
some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the 
while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. 
I was myself excited somewhat, even as if they had been 
men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. 
And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord 
history at least, if in the history of America, that will 
bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the 
numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism 
displayed. 

8. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz 
or Dresden. I have no doubt that it was a principle they 
fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a 
three-penny tax on their tea ; and the results of this bat¬ 
tle will be as important and memorable to those whom it 
concerns, as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least. 

9. I took up the chip on which the three I have par¬ 
ticularly described were struggling, carried it into my 
house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, 
in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the 


30 


FIFTH READER. 


first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assidu¬ 
ously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having 
severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn 
away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the 
black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick 
for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s 
eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. 

10. They struggled half an hour longer under the 
tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had 
severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the 
still living heads were hanging on either side of him like 
ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as 
firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with 
feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the 
remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, 
to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an 
hour more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he 
went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. 
Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the 
remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides , I do 
not know; but I thought that his industry would not be 
worth much thereafter. I never learned which party 
was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for 
the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited 
and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity 
and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 

_ Henry D. Thoreau. 

For Preparation.— I. From “Walden, or Life in the Woods” (pub¬ 
lished in 1854). “ Walden ” is a pond near the village of Concord, Mass. 

(<Sc<? XLIV., LIX., and LXXVIII.) Allusions are made in this piece to the 
fight which took place there between the Americans and British on the 
day of the battle of Lexington (four miles to the eastward of Concord). 
“ Legions of these myrmidons ” (the myrmidons were the terrible troops of 
Achilles at the siege of Troy). “ Red republicans ” (the fanatical revolu- 



FIFTH READER. 


31 


tionists of France). “ Opposed to the black imperialists ” (who favored an 
empire or monarchy). Achilles is described in Homer’s “ Iliad ” (i'-lT-ad) as 
nourishing his wrath apart, and not entering the fight until after his friend 
Pa-tro'-clus was killed. “ Hotel des Invalides ” (o-tel' da zang-va-led'), (a 
celebrated military asylum at Paris, for disabled soldiers). “ Whose mother 
had charged him to return with his shield or upon it ” (alluding to the Spar¬ 
tan mother’s charge to her son, “ to return with his shield ”—i. e., having 
defended, and not thrown it away in flight—“ or upon it ” ; i. e., brought 
home upon his shield, having bravely died in the fight). 

II. Peage'-ful, fierge'-ly, wrest'-led (res'ld), in-ces'-sant-ly, fore'- 
leg, ceased (sest), shield, com'-bat-ants, ml'-ero-s-eope, war'-rior 
(wdr'yur), tro'-phie§. 

III. Unequal ( un is a prefix meaning not) —what does wwequal mean ? 
In what compound words is the hyphen omitted ? (In very common ones; 
e. g., noonday.) 

IV. Pertinacity, assiduously, duellum (Latin, duellum , a fight between 
two), helium (a Latin word meaning war, originally spelled duellum , and 
meaning a fight between two parties), divested, internecine ( inter = between, 
necare , to slay—mutually destructive), feelers. 

V. The style of this piece is an imitation of the heroic style of Homer’s 
“ Iliad,” and is properly a “ mock-heroic.” The description of the affairs 
of the ants with the same elevated style that one would treat the affairs 
of men gives the effect of a “quiet humor.” This is, in fact, often a 
characteristic of Thoreau’s style. His “A Week on the Concord and Mer- 
rimac Rivers ” borrows its grandeur of style from Homer’s “ Odyssey ” to 
describe the unromantic incidents of a ride in a small boat down a small, 
sluggish river, for a few miles. The intention of the author is twofold: 
half-seriously endowing the incidents of every-day life with epic dignity, in 
the belief that there is nothing mean and trivial to the poet and philoso¬ 
pher, and that it is the man that adds dignity to the occasion, and not the 
occasion that dignifies the man; half-satirically treating the human events 
alluded to, as though they were non-heroic, and only fit to be applied to the 
events of animal life. 


VIII.—THE SOLDIER’S DREAM. 

1. Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered, 
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; 
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered— 
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 




32 


FIFTH READER. 


2. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, 

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, 

At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, 

And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. 

3. Methought from the battle-field’s dreadful array, 

Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track; 

’Twas autumn—and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. 

4. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft 

In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young; 
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers 
sung. 

5. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, 

From my home and my weeping friends never to 
part; 

My little ones kissed me a thousand times o’er, 

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart. 

6. “ Stay, stay with us!—rest; thou art weary and worn 1 ” 

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; 

But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, 

And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away! 

Thomas Campbell. 


For Preparation. — I. Note, in the biography of this author, his connec¬ 
tion with soldier-life and battles. His lyrics are esteemed among the best 
in the language. 

II. Fag'-ot, guiird'-ed (gard'-), vi§'-ion (vizh'un), nn'-tumn (aw'tum), 
sol'-dier (-jer). 

III. Difference between “lowered” and “lowered” in meaning? (to 
lower another, to lower, itself). What two words compose welcomed? 
“ Bleating ”—is its sound expressive of its meaning ? 



FIFTH READER. 


33 


IV. Truce, pallet, desolate, “ fondly I swore” (i. e., without careful con¬ 
sideration, rashly), fain. 

V. Note the figure of speech in the second line : “ The sentinel stars,” 

etc. (how natural for the soldier!) “ Thrice ere the morning ” (the repe¬ 

tition of the dream supposed to indicate its sure fulfillment). Note, again, 
the figure : “ In life’s morning march,” etc. “ Goats bleating aloft ” (in the 
upland pastures). “’Twas autumn”—why? accident, or poet’s choice? 
(The next two verses describe autumn scenes.) Note the exquisite fitness 
of metre for the expression of the sense and tone of feeling: “ Our 6w-gles 
sang truce ; for the night- cloud had Jow-ered ”: ^ | ^ w — |uv - \ ^ ^ 

— | Note the pathetic element in this poem, and compare it with that in 
Mrs. Hemans’s Adopted Child or Dimond’s Marfoicr's Dream (in the Fourth 
Reader). Contrast the serene heights, elevated above the region of the 
pathetic, in XII.: How sleep the Brave? and in The Burial of Sir John 
Moore (both patriotic pieces); the religious plane of thought and feeling is 
still further removed from the pathetic. The artlessness with which this 
piece is put together, the lack of motives in one part for what is introduced 
in another, leads to the supposition that the poet described a real dream. 


IX.—DR. PRIMROSE IN PRISON. 

1. The next morning I communicated to my wife 
and children the scheme I had planned of reforming the 
prisoners, which they received w T ith universal disappro¬ 
bation, alleging the impossibility and impropriety of it; 
adding that my endeavors would in no way contribute to 
their amendment, but might probably disgrace my calling. 

2. “ Excuse me,” returned I, “ these people, however 
fallen, are still men, and that is a good title to my affec¬ 
tions. Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the giver’s 
bosom; and though the instruction I communicate may 
not amend them, yet it will assuredly mend myself. 

3. “If these wretches, my children, were princes, 
there would be thousands ready to offer their ministry; 
but, in my opinion, the heart that is buried in a dungeon 
is as precious as that seated upon a throne. Yes, my 




34 


FIFTH READER. 


treasures, if I can mend them, I will; perhaps they will 
not all despise me. Perhaps I may catch up even one 
from the gulpli, and that will be a great gain; for is there 
upon earth a gem so precious as the human soul ? ” 

4. Thus saying I left them, and descended to the com¬ 
mon prison, where I found the prisoners very merry, ex¬ 
pecting my arrival; and each prepared some gaol-trick 
to play upon the doctor. Thus, as I was going to begin, 
one turned my wig awry, as if by accident, and then 
asked my pardon. 

5. A second, who stood at some distance, had a knack 
of spitting through his teeth, which fell in showers on 
my book. A third would cry “Amen ! ” in such an affected 
tone as gave the rest great delight. A fourth had slyly 
picked my pocket of my spectacles. But there was one 
whose trick gave more universal pleasure than all the. 
rest; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed 
my books on the table before me, he very dexterously 
displaced one of them, and put an obscene jest-book of 
his own in the place. 

6. However, I took no notice of all that this mis¬ 
chievous group of little beings could do, but went on, 
perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt 
would excite mirth only the first or second time, while 
what was serious would be permanent. My design suc¬ 
ceeded; and in less than six days some were penitent, 
and all attentive. 

7. It was now that I applauded my perseverance and 
address at thus giving sensibility to wretches divested of 
every moral feeling, and now began to think of doing 
them temporal services also, by rendering their situation 
somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto 


FIFTH READER. 


85 


been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot 
and bitter repining. 

8. Their only employment was quarreling among each 
other, playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco stoppers. 
From this last mode of idle industry I took the hint of 
setting such as chose to work at cutting pegs for tobac¬ 
conists and shoemakers, the proper wood being bought by 
a general subscription, and, when manufactured, sold by 
appointment; so that each earned something every day: 
a trifle, indeed, but sufficient to maintain him. 

9. I did not stop here; but instituted fines for the 

punishment of immorality, and rewards for peculiar in¬ 
dustry. Thus, in less than a fortnight, I had formed 
them into something social and humane, and had the 
pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator, who had 
brought men from their native ferocity into friendship 
and obedience. Oliva' Goldsmith. 


For Preparation.— I. A selection from “The Vicar of Wakefield”; 
portrays the most amiable, humane, and pious soul in English literature. A 
vein of refined, genial humor runs under it all. 

II. -eoun'-sel (distinguished from -eoun'-<?il), dun'-geon, (-jun), 
giilph (antiquated spelling of gulf), gaol (jai) (also jail), knack (nak), 
mis'-chiev-ous, (-che-vus), ob-sgene', per-se-ver'-ange, shoe'-mak-er§. 

III. Signification of dis in disapprobation, disgrace, displaced ;—of im in 
impossibility and impropriety ; — de in descended (de = down, scended = 
climbed) ; sensibility (ability to feel, tenderness of heart). 

IV. Scheme, alleging, awry, dexterously, ridiculous, diverted, repining, 
tumultuous, cribbage, tobacconists, sold by appointment. 

V. Note the quality of the sayings of Dr. Primrose—almost as pithy and 
felicitously expressed as proverbs: “ These people, however fallen, are still 
men;” “Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the giver’s bosom;” “Is 
there upon earth a gem so precious as the human soul ? ” Note the depth 
of his faith and the stability of his character in the reflection that (6) “ what 
was ridiculous in my attempt would excite mirth only the first or seoond 
time, while what was serious would be permanent.” 



36 


FIFTH HEADER. 


X.—THE HERMIT. 

1. At tlie close of the day, when the hamlet is still, 

And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, 
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, 
And naught but the nightingale’s song in the grove, 
’Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar, 

While his harp rang symphonious, a hermit began ; 
TSTo more with himself or with Nature at war, 

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man: 

2. “ Ah ! why, all abandoned to darkness and woe, 

Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall? 

For spring shall return, and a lover bestow, 

And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral. 

But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay : 

Mourn, sweetest complainer—man calls thee to 
mourn! 

O, soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away! 
Full quickly they pass—but they never return. 

3. “Now, gliding remote on the verge of the sky, 

The moon, half extinguished, her crescent displays; 
But lately I marked when majestic on high 

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. 
Boll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue 
The path that conducts thee to splendor again ! 

But man’s faded glory what change shall renew ? 

Ah, fool! to exult in a'glory so vain! 

4. “ ’Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more. 

I mourn—but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; 
For morn is approaching your charms to restore, 
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with 
dew. 


FIFTH READER. 


37 


Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn— 

Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save ; 

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn ? 

Oh, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave ? 

5. “ ’Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed, 

That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind, 

My thoughts wont to roam from shade onward to 
shade, 

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. 

6 Oh, pity, great Father of Light! ’ then I cried, 

6 Thy creature, who fain would not wander from 
Thee! 

Lo! humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride; 

From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free.’ 

6. “ And darkness and doubt are now flying away; 

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn. 

So breaks on the traveler, faint and astray, 

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. 

See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, 
And Nature all glowdng in Eden’s first bloom! 

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are 
blending, 

And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.” 

James Beattie. 


For Preparation. —I. Is the nightingale (sometimes called “Philomela” • 
by the poets) found in America ? Account for the frequency with which 
this bird is spoken of by European poets (see XVII.). 

Naught (Dawt), tSr'-rent, -erSs'-gent, ma-jSs'-ti-e. 

III. Ye woodlands, for you (would for ye be proper ?); st in canst ? 

IV. Hamlet, effulgence, “ prove the sweets of forgetfulness ” (i. e., try 
them), symphonious (tuned so as to harmonize with his song), enthral, 
planets, relinquish, conjecture, forlorn, embryo, ravage. 



38 


FIFTH READER. 


V. “ Thou fair orb ”—what orb ? “ Thought as a sage, . . . felt as a 

man” (thought wisely, but felt the passions of humanity). “Languishing 
fall ” (voice falling in pitch as it closes its melody; expressing weariness 
and heart-longing). “ Mouldering urn ” (the urn held the ashes of the body 
which was burned by the Romans after death). 


XI.—THE SURVIVORS OF THE BATTLE OF 
BUNKER HILL 

1. Venerable men ! you have come down to us from 
a former generation. Heaven has bounteously length¬ 
ened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous 
day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this 
very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, 
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife of your country. 

2. Behold how altered! The same heavens are, in¬ 
deed, over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; 
but all else, how changed! You hear now no roll of 
hostile cannon; you see no mixed volumes of smoke and 
flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground 
strewed with the dead and dying; the impetuous charge; 
the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to re¬ 
peated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to 
repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fear¬ 
lessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may 
be in war and death—all these you have witnessed, but 
you witness them no more. 

3. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, 
its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives 
and children, and countrymen in distress and terror, and 
looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the 
combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its 
whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet 
you with a universal jubilee. 



FIFTH READER. 


39 


4. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position ap¬ 
propriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming 
fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to 
you, but your country’s own means of distinction and 
defence. 

5. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight 
of your country’s happiness ere you slumber in the grave 
forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake 
the reward of your patriotic toils; and lie has allowed 
us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and, in 
the name of the present generation, in the name of your 
country, in the name of liberty, to thank you. 

6. But, alas! you are not all here. Time and the 
sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, 
Stark, Brooks, Reed, Pomeroy, Bridge—our eyes seek 
for you in vain amidst this broken band; you are gath¬ 
ered to your fathers, and live only to your country 
in her grateful remembrance, and your own bright ex¬ 
ample. 

7. But let us not too much grieve that you have met 
the common fate of men; you lived, at least, long enough 
to know that your work had been nobly and successfully 
accomplished. You lived to see your country’s indepen¬ 
dence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. 
On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like 

“ Another morn, 

Risen on mid-noon; ” 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 

8. But—ah!—him! the first great martyr in this great 
cause! him! the premature victim of his own self-de¬ 
voted heart! him, the head of our civil councils, and the 


40 


FIFTH READER. 


destined leader of onr military bands; whom nothing 
brought thither but the unquenchable fire of his own 
spirit; him! cut off by Providence, in the hour of over¬ 
whelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling, ere he saw 
the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous 
blood, like water, before he knew whether it would fer¬ 
tilize a land of freedom or of bondage! 

9. How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the 
utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish, but 
thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; 
the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level 
with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Whereso¬ 
ever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the 
transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be 
to claim kindred with thy spirit. 

Daniel Webster. 


For Preparation. — I. At the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill 
Monument. “Fifty years ago” implies what date for this address? 
Whose “hostile cannon” are referred to? Location of Charlestown? 
What “metropolis”? “Yonder proud ships” (in the Navy-Yard) remind 
the orator of what other ships? Who were Prescott, Putnam, and the 
others named? “The first great martyr in this great cause” (Warren). 
Explain the allusions in the apostrophe in verses 8 and 9. 

II. Boun'-te-ofisdy, -ean'-non (difference from canon . ? ), -ebm'-bat, 
mar'-tyr (-tur), -eoun'-gil (difference from counsel f) 

III. TJn and able in unutterable (utter and outer, compare meanings); 
saw (why not use seen ?) 

IV. Impetuous assault, summoning, issue, jubilee, felicity of position, 
.annoyance, grateful remembrance. 

V. Contrast this style with that of XV. Take up verses 1 to 6, word 
by word, and see how every slight fact and external circumstance is stated 
in a sober, weighty manner, so as to express the feeling that pervades the 
occasion. Notice the long resonant words, and the absence of any tinge of 
humor. The solemnity of the memories clustered about the scene finds 
expression in every sentence. Change a verse of this into general state¬ 
ments of fact, and see how the rhetorical coloring vanishes, and, with it, the 



FIFTH READER. 


41 


expression of the feeling produced by the occasion. Notice in this fact the 
necessary difference between a spoken production and one that is merely 
- written for publication. (Compare also with Lincoln’s Address at Gettys¬ 
burg (Fourth Reader), in point of dignity of style.) 


XII.—ODE. 

1. How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country’s wishes blessed ! 

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Keturns to deck their hallowed mould, 

She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod. 

2. By fairy hands their knell is rung; 

By forms unseen their dirge is sung. 

There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 

To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 

And Freedom shall a while repair, 

To dwell a weeping hermit there ! 

William Collins. 


For Preparation.—1. Read an account of the adventures of the au¬ 
thor (lack of appreciation, wretched death, etc.). Have you read (and com¬ 
mitted to memory) any of his “ odes, descriptive and allegorical ” ? (published 
in 1746, and considered to be the best lyrical poems of the language). 

II. Fin'-ger (fing'gur), hal'-lowed (-lod), knSll (nSl), gray {grey). 

III. Meaning of un and final n in unseen;— er in sweeter ? 

IY. Dirge, hermit, hallowed, pilgrim, deck, dress. 

Y. Personification of spring, fancy, honor, freedom; in what guise is 
each conceived ? “ Turf that wraps their clay ”—note the appropriateness 

of the metaphor implied, like a “ martial cloak ” in which a warrior “ takes 
his rest ” {Burial of Sir John Moore). Find points of contrast and resem¬ 
blance between this piece and the one preceding (in dignity of style, atmos¬ 
phere of feeling implied, choice of words, subject in the present surround¬ 
ings, or in a large assembly, or merely ideal or general, etc.). 




42 


FIFTH READER. 


XIII.—THE DEATH OF LE FEVRE. 

1. My Uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse 
into his breeches pocket, and, having ordered the cor¬ 
poral to go early in the morning for a physician, he went 
to bed and fell asleep. 

2. The sun looked bright, the morning after, to every 
eye in the village but Le Fevre’s and his afflicted son's. 
The hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids ; and 
hardly could the wheel of the cistern turn round its cir¬ 
cle, when my Uncle Toby, who had rose up at an hour 
before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, 
and without preface or apology sat himself down upon 
the chair at the bedside, and, independently of all modes 
and customs, opened the curtain, in the manner an old 
friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked 
how he did, how he had rested in the night, what was 
his complaint, where was his pain, and what he could do 
to help him; and without giving time to answer any one 
of the inquiries, he went on and told him of the little 
plan which he had been concerting with the corporal, 
the night before, for him. 

3. “ You shall go home directly, Le Fevre,” said my 
Uncle Toby, “ to my house; and we’ll send for a doctor to 
see what’s the matter; and we’ll have an apothecary; 
and the corporal shall be your nurse; and I’ll be your 
servant, Le Fevre.” 

4. There was a frankness in my Uncle Toby, not the 
effect of familiarity, but the cause of it, which let you at 
once into his soul and showed you the goodness of his 
nature; to this, there was something in his looks, and 
voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned 


FIFTH READER. 


43 


to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under 
him; so that before my Uncle Toby had half-finished 
the kind offers he was making to the father, had the 
son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had 
taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it 
toward him. 

5. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were 
waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to 
their last citadel, the heart, rallied back; the film forsook 
his eyes for a moment; he looked up wistfully in my 
Uncle Toby’s face, then cast a look upon his boy; and 
that ligament, fine as it was, w'as never broken. 

6. Nature instantly ebbed again; the film returned to 
its place; the pulse fluttered, stopped, went on, throbbed, 
stopped again, moved, stopped—shall I go on % No. 

Laurence Sterne. 


For Preparation.—I. Tell enough of the life of this author to explain 
the circumstances under which he wrote “ The Sentimental Journey.” 

II. Indicate (I. e., with diacritical marks, hyphens, and accents) 
and explain (i. e., classify the unusual combinations of letters ac¬ 
cording to form given in the treatise on Spelling, in the Appen¬ 
dix) : bu'-reau (bu'-ro—eau for o; oa, ou, ow, oe, oo being more 
frequently used for o, and ew, eo, and au, less so), eye'-lid (!'-), ohr'- 
tain (-tin), in-quir'-ie§, a-poth'-e--ea-ry, fa-mil-iar'-i-ty (-yar'-), knee§ 
(neez), £it'-a-del, lieu-tbn'-ant’s (ia-> 

III. Explain effect of 's in son’s (§ 2) — son's what ? What should 
we say instead of “ had rose ” (2) ? Effect of super in superadded ? Men¬ 
tion some other words in which super has the same meaning. 

IV. Use synonymous expressions for wonted, preface, apology, ebbed, 
concerting, corporal, beckoned, insensibly, wistfully. 

V. “ Wheel of the cistern ” (see Eccl. xii. 6). Notice the concise style 
in § 6. What is personified there ? Who questions ? Who answers “ No ” ? 
Describe in your own words the character of Uncle Toby from the glimpse 
of him given in this piece. 



44 


FIFTH READER. 


XIV.—MATTER-OF-FACT AND EARNEST IDEAS. 

FIRST CLASS : MATTER-OF-FACT IDEAS. 

(.Merely Intellectual, and without Feeling .) 

All such unemotional ideas, whether narrative, de¬ 
scriptive, or didactic, whether in prose or verse, require, 
in reading, the same “ moderate ” degree of “ force ” and 
“ time ” and “ slide ” of voice. The general force should 
be just loud enough for every word to be easily heard, with 
just enough additional force and quantity and slide on the 
emphatic words, for the sense to be clearly understood. 

EXAMPLE. 

“ Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced 
it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth 
it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town- 
crier spoke my lines.” 

(“Hamid to the First PlayerShakespeare.) 

Analysis. —These are the words of Shakespeare (not 
of some other author), spoken by Hamlet (not by some 
one else), and to a particular person (the first flayer). 
These, then, are three important distinctive ideas, and 
must be emphasized in introducing the reading-lesson. 

The first distinctive point in Hamlet’s request is not 
the general idea—“ Speak the speech, I pray you ”—for 
this is not new to either party, but is understood. Ham¬ 
let has asked the player, before, if he could study the 
speech, and he has consented. 

It must be, then, the manner of speaking it. It can¬ 
not be in the word “pronounced,” for that is not a point 
of difference—“ pronounced ” and “ speak ” having the 
same meaning. “ Speak the speech as I spoke it to you,” 
or, “ Pronounce the speech as I pronounced it to you,” 


FIFTH READER. 


4S 

make no distinctive point of sense whatever. But “ speak 
it as 1'” (as Hamlet') “spoke it to you,” is the distinc¬ 
tive point of the request. And this manner is made still 
more definite by the explanatory word which follows, 
viz., “ trippingly' on the tongue.” “ Tongue ” must not 
be emphasized, because it does not express a differential 
idea. Whatever the manner, it must be spoken “ on the 
tongue,” of course. “Mouth” stands out in sharp con¬ 
trast to trippingly, and so is most emphatic; and the 
comparison of the “ town-crier' ” presents a very distinct 
picture of the most monotonous and senseless elocution, 
and therefore must be emphasized accordingly. 

The example, marked in accordance with the analysis 
given: 

“ Speak the speech, I pray you, as I' pronounced it 
to you, trippingly' on the tongue; but if you mouth! it, 
as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier' 
spoke my lines.” 

second class: earnest ideas. 

All such as are spoken with more or less mental ex¬ 
citement and fervor, as in the warmth of debate, yet not 
characterized by any specific emotion. 

To be read with “louder force” (the degree increasing 
with the growing earnestness), and with “longer” emphatic 
“quantity” and “ slide f than matter-of fact ideas require. 

EXAMPLE. 

“When public bodies are to be addressed on momen¬ 
tous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong 
passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther 
than it is connected with high intellectual and moral en¬ 
dowments. 

“Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities 


46 


FIFTH READER. 


which, produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does 
not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. It 
must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.” 

{From “ True Eloquenceby Daniel Webster.) 


Analysis .—Webster has been speaking of the great 
eloquence of John Adams, and, to justify this praise, he 
gives his own ideas of true eloquence, in this famous 
passage, a part of which we quote. 

Look, then, for the points of difference between this 
highest eloquence and that which is ordinary. First , the 
circumstances. It is on “ momentous ” (not ordinary) oc¬ 
casions, when “great” (not small) interests are at stake, 
and “ strong ” passions (not weak ones) are excited. These, 
then, are distinctive points, and must be emphasized as 
the important conditions of the positive assertion that 
follows. 

And what is the distinctive part of this assertion? 
Not that “ nothing is valuable in speech,” or even that 
“nothing is valuable in speech farther than it is con¬ 
nected with high endowments”: for all eloquence de¬ 
pends on high endowments of some kind. On ordinary 
occasions, the high endowments of the scholar or the 
actor may be valuable in speech; but on momentous oc¬ 
casions, when such great interests as independence and 
nationality are at stake, then the speaker, like Adams, 
must have the intellectual power to see what is right and 
best, and the moral courage to contend for it at all haz¬ 
ards ; then nothing is valuable in speech farther than it is 
connected with “ high intellectual' and moral' endow¬ 
ments.” 

To make sure of not emphasizing the common idea, 
in the last word “ endowments,” and of giving the posi¬ 
tive falling slide to the distinctive words “intellectual” 


FIFTH READER. 47 

and “moral,” supply the differential words, and read the 
full contrast thus: 

“Not high scholarly' or oratorical' endowments, but 
‘ high intellectual' and moral' endowments.’ ” 

Next are stated “ the qualities which produce convic¬ 
tion,” and each quality is a distinct, positive idea, and 
must have its own falling slide to individuate it; as 
“ clearness ', forcd , and earnestness', are the qualities 
which produce conviction.” 

If pupils persist in running these three ideas together 
without letting the voice fall on each, the best way to se¬ 
cure the right reading is to ask a separate question for 
each; as, “ What is the first quality ? ” “ Clearness '.” 

“The second?” “ Force'” “The third?” “Earnest¬ 
ness'.” 

“ True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech’. 
It cannot be taught from far’.” “True” is here dis¬ 
tinguished from false eloquence, and “speech” and “far” 
are emphatic negative ideas (to be read with the rising 
slide), made distinctive in the strongest way by contrast 
with the positive ideas (to be read with the falling slide) 
that follow, in which true eloquence must exist, viz., in 
the “ man\” in the “ subject',” and in the “ occasion'” 

The analysis should be studied until the selection can 
be read correctly without the aid of elocutionary marks. 
Pupils will thus acquire a better discipline for indepen¬ 
dent reading, than if aided too much by the mechanical 
signs of emphasis and expression. 

DIBECTIONS TO PUPILS. 

This work of analysis (studying the meaning and 
reading of the separate parts) is to perfect synthesis (the 
rendering of the whole.) 


48 


FIFTH READER. 


First , then, read the selection to be analyzed. 

Second, read and study the analysis of the same. 

Third , re-read the selection as a whole, in accordance 
with the analysis. This process should be repeated until 
the pupils master the double lesson of reasoning and 
reading. 


XV.—THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 

1. Harold was crowned king of England on the very 
day of The Confessor’s funeral. He had good need to be 
quick about it. When the news reached Norman Wil¬ 
liam, hunting in his park at Rouen, he dropped his bow, 
returned to his palace, called his nobles to council, and 
presently sent ambassadors to Harold, calling on him to 
keep his oath, and resign the crown. Harold would do 
no such thing. The barons of France leagued together 
round Duke William for the invasion of England. Duke 
William promised -freely to distribute English wealth 
and English lands among them. The Pope sent to Nor¬ 
mandy a consecrated banner, and a ring containing a 
hair which he warranted to have grown on the head of 
St. Peter. He blessed the enterprise, and cursed Har¬ 
old; and requested that the Normans would pay 
“ Peter’s-pence ”—or a tax to himself of a penny a year 
on every house—a little more regularly in future, if they 
could make it convenient. 

2. King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, 
who was a vassal of Harold Hardrada, king of Norway. 
This brother and this Norwegian king, joining their 
forces against England, with Duke William’s help, won 
a fight, in which the English were commanded by two 
nobles, and then besieged York. Harold, who was wait- 



FIFTH READER. 


49 


ing for the Normans on the coast at Hastings, with his 
army, marched to Stamford Bridge, upon the river Der¬ 
went, to give them instant battle. 

3. He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, 
marked out by their shining spears. Biding round this 
circle at a distance, to survey it, he saw a brave figure on 
horseback, in a blue mantle and a bright helmet, whose 
horse suddenly stumbled and threw him. 

4. “ "Who is that man who has fallen ? ” Harold asked 
of one of his captains. 

“ The king of Norway,” he replied. 

“ He is a tall and stately king,” said Harold; “ but 
his end is near.” 

5. He added, in a little while, “Go yonder to my 
brother, and tell him if he withdraw his troops he shall 
be Earl of Northumberland, and rich and powerful in 
England.” 

The captain rode away and gave the message. 

6. u What will he give to my friend, the king of Nor¬ 
way ? ” asked the brother. 

“ Seven feet of earth for a grave,” replied the cap¬ 
tain. 

“ No more ?” returned the brother, with a smile. 

“ The king of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a 
little more,” replied the captain. 

a Bide back,” said the brother, “ and tell King Har¬ 
old to make ready for the fight.” 

7. He did so very soon. And such a fight King 
Harold led against that force, that his brother, the Nor¬ 
wegian king, and every chief of note in all their host, 
except the Norwegian king’s son Olave, to whom he 
gave honorable dismissal, were left dead upon the field. 

3 


50 


FIFTH READER. 


The victorious army marched to York. As King Harold 
sat there at the feast, in the midst of all his company, a 
stir was heard at the doors, and messengers, all covered 
with mire from riding far and fast through broken 
ground, came hurrying in to report that the Normans 
had landed in England. 

8. The intelligence was true. They had been tossed 
about by contrary winds, and some of their ships had 
been wrecked. A part of their own shore, to which 
they had been driven back, was strewn with Norman 
bodies. But they had once more made sail, led by the 
duke’s own galley, a present from his wife, upon the 
prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood pointing 
toward England. By day, the banner of the three lions 
of Normandy, the diverse-colored sails, the gilded vanes, 
the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had glit¬ 
tered in the sun and sunny water ; by night, a light had 
sparkled like a star at her masthead ; and now, encamped 
near Hastings, with their leader lying in the old Homan 
castle of Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, 
the land for miles around scorched and smoking, fired 
and pillaged, were the whole Norman power, hopeful and 
strong on English ground. 

9. Harold broke up the feast and hurried to London. 
Within a week his army was ready. He sent out spies 
to ascertain the Norman strength. 

William took them, caused them to be led through his 
whole camp, and then dismissed. 

“ The Normans,” said these spies to Harold, “ are not 
bearded on the upper lip as we English are, but are 
shorn. They are priests.” 

“ My men,” replied Harold, with a laugh, “ will find 
those priests good soldiers.” 


FIFTH READER. 


SI 


10. u The Saxons,” reported Duke William’s outposts 
of Norman soldiers, who were instructed to retire as 
King Harold’s army advanced, “ rush on us through their 
pillaged country with the fury of madmen.” 

“Let them come, and come soon,” said Duke William. 

11. Some proposals for reconciliation were made, but 
were soon abandoned. In the middle of the month of 
October, in the year one thousand and sixty-six, the Nor¬ 
mans and the English came front to front. All night the 
armies lay encamped before each other in a part of the 
country then called Senlac, now called (in remembrance 
of them) Battle. With the first dawn of day they arose. 

12. There, in the faint light, were the English on a 
hill; a wood behind them ; in their midst the royal ban¬ 
ner, representing a fighting warrior woven in gold 
thread, adorned with precious stones; beneath the ban¬ 
ner, as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on foot, 
with two of his remaining brothers by his side ; around 
them, still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole 
English army—every soldier covered by his shield, and 
bearing in his hand his dreaded English battle-axe. 

13. On an opposite hill, in three lines—archers, foot 
soldiers, horsemen—was the Norman force. Of a sud¬ 
den, a great battle-cry, “ God help us! ” burst from the 
Norman lines. The English answered with their own 
battle-cry, “ God’s rood ! holy rood ! ” The Normans 
then came sweeping down the hill to attack the English. 

14. There was one tall Norman knight who rode be¬ 
fore the Norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up 
his heavy sword and catching it, and singing of the 
bravery of his countrymen. An English knight, who 
rode out from the English force to meet him, fell by this 


52 


FIFTH READER. 


knight’s hand. Another English knight rode out, and 
he fell too. But then a third rode out, and killed the 
Norman. This was in the first beginning of the fight. 
It soon raged everywhere. 

15. The English, keeping side by side in a great mass, 
cared no more for the showers of Norman arrows than 
if they had been showers of Norman rain. When the 
Norman horsemen rode against them, with their battle- 
axes they cut men and horses down. 

16. The Normans gave way. The English pressed 
forward. A cry went forth among the Norman troops 
that Duke William was killed. Duke William took off 
his helmet, in order that his face might be distinctly 
seen, and rode along the line before his men. This gave 
them courage. As they turned again to face the Eng¬ 
lish, some of their Norman horse divided the pursuing 
body of the English from the rest, and thus all that fore¬ 
most portion of the English army fell, fighting bravely. 

17. The main body still remaining firm, heedless of 
the Norman arrows, and with their battle-axes cutting 
down the crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like 
forests of young trees, Duke William pretended to retreat. 
The eager English followed. The Norman army closed 
again, and fell upon them with great slaughter. 

“ Still,” said Duke William, “ there are thousands of 
the English, firm as rocks, around their king. Shoot up¬ 
ward, Norman archers, that your arrows may fall down 
upon their faces.” 

18. The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still 
raged. Through all the wild October day, the clash and 
din resounded in the air. In the red sunset, and in the 
white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men lay 


FIFTH READER. 


S3 


strewn—a dreadful spectacle—all over the ground. King 
Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly 
blind. His brothers were already killed. Twenty Nor¬ 
man knights, whose battered armor had flashed fiery and 
golden in the sunshine all day long, and now looked sil¬ 
very in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the royal 
banner from the English knights and soldiers, still faith¬ 
fully collected round their blinded king. The king re¬ 
ceived a mortal wound, and dropped. The English broke 
and fled. The Normans rallied, and the day was lost. 

19. Oh, what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when 
lights were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke 
William, which was pitched near the spot where Harold 
fell—and he and his knights were carousing within—and 
soldiers with torches going slowly to and fro without, 
sought for the corpse of Harold among the piles of dead— 
and the banner, with its warrior worked in golden thread 
and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled in blood 
—and the three Norman lions kept watch over the field ! 

Charles Dickens. 


For Preparation. — I. Give an account of the author of this piece. 
Have you read his “Nicholas Nickleby ” ?—“ A Child’s History of Eng¬ 
land ” ? What else ? Point out, on the map, Rouen, Normandy, Norway, 
Hastings, Derwent River (in Yorkshire; there is another in Cumberland), 
York. At what time did this occur? (§ 11.) Has England been con¬ 
quered since this “ Norman conquest ” ? Who had conquered it before ? 
Who was “ The Confessor ” ? 

II. -€oun'-gil, leagued (leegd), gir'-ele (-kl), sur-vey' (-va'), -eap'-tain 
(-tin), dis-miss'-al, knight (nit), Eng'-lish (ing'giish), sought (sawt), war'- 
rior (wor'yur). 

III. Explain the effect on the meaning of the word of’s in Conqueror’s 

ed in asked;— n in strewn;— most in foremost; — less in needless. In § 14, 
is the word “ first ” necessary before “ beginning ” ? 

IV. Meaning of resign (1), vassal (2), survey (3), diverse (8), pillaged 
(10), reconciliation (11), carousing (19). 



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FIFTH READER. 


V. Point out remarks that indicate a gay humor in describing these 
events. Is such a style appropriate to the subject ? Can you find passages 
that seem flippant ? What is the author’s reason for writing in this style ? 
(writing for the amusement of children ?) Das he selected the essential 
features of the events to describe ? Does his narrative give you a clear 
picture of the battle, and an idea of the causes at work to effect the results 
which he names ? Which is the most spirited passage in the piece ?—the 
most touching ? 


XVI.—AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. 

1. Good people all, of every sort, 

Give ear unto my song ; 

And if you find it wondrous short, 

It cannot hold you long. 

2. In Islington there lived a man, 

Of whom the world might say, 

That still a goodly race he ran 
Whene’er he went to pray. 

3. A kind and gentle heart he had, 

To comfort friends and foes ; 

The naked every day he clad 
When he put on his clothes. 

4. And in that town a dog was found, 

As many dogs there be, 

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 

And curs of low degree. 

5. This dog and man at first were friends ; 

But when a pique began, 

The dog, to gain his private ends, 

Went mad, and bit the man. 




FIFTH READER. 


35 


6. Around from all the neighboring streets 

The wondering neighbors ran, 

And swore the dog had lost his wits, 

To bite so good a man. 

7. The wound it seemed both sore and sad 

To every Christian eye ; 

And while they swore the dog was mad, 

They swore the man would die. 

8. But soon a wonder came to light, 

That showed the rogues they lied: 

The man recovered of the bite, 

The dog it was that died. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 


For Preparation. —I. “Islington”—where? 

II. Mon'-grel (mung'-), pique (peek), rogues (rogs). 

III. Explain changes from bite to bit, swear to swore, run to ran, have to 
had, begin to began, clothe to clad, find to found. 

IY. What different words are used for dogs in this piece ? Explain 
their different shades of meaning. 

Y. Examine the turns of wit in this poem. They consist in the use of 
words or phrases oi two meanings (ambiguous), and, when you incline to 
take one of them, suddenly the next line suggests that the other may 
be the true one. (A person thinks to sit down in a chair where there is 
none, and sits on the floor.) “ Goodly race he ran ”—literal meaning and a 
figurative one (1); “wondrous short” (in space); “hold you long” (time) 
(2); “ clad the naked ” (i. e., was good to the poor ?); “ When he put on his 
clothes ” (no, he clad his naked self) (3); “ a dog was found, as many dogs 
there be ” (“ was found ” means simply there was, but may mean was dis¬ 
covered) ; “ curs of low degree ” (using an expression applied to human beings 
only, as if there were social castes among dogs) (4); “ to gain his private 
ends, went mad ” (in order to gratify his spite, he inflicted on himself a deadly 
injury) (5) ; “ dog had lost his wits to bite,” etc. (“ lost his wits ” means that 
he acted foolishly, or that he had the hydrophobia) (6). 



56 


FIFTH READER. 


XVII.—THE NIGHTINGALE. 

1. The famed nightingale, luscinia philomela, is un¬ 
known in America, but in England and throughout 
Europe it is deemed the prince of singers. In the even¬ 
ing, after most of Nature’s sounds are hushed, the night¬ 
ingale begins his song, and sings, with little rest, all the 
night. It rarely sings by day, and those kept in cages 
are often covered with a cloth to make them sing. It is 
very shy; professed naturalists know but little of its 
habits. Mudie says: “ I watched them carefully for more 
than five years in a place where they were very abun¬ 
dant, and at the end of that time I was about as wise as 
at the beginning.” 

2. The nightingale begins to sing in England in April. 
Its music is loudest and most constant when it first 
comes, for then the males are singing in earnest rivalry 
to attract their mates. When the female has once made 
her choice, her male becomes very much attached to her, 
and, if she should be captured, pines and dies. But his 
song grows less, and, after the eggs are hatched, ceases 
altogether. The bird-catchers try to secure the singers 
during the first week, for then by proper care they may 
be made to sing a long time. 

3. The song of the nightingale cannot be described, 
even though one gentleman has printed nearly half a 
page of what he calls a literal version of it. Here is a 
specimen: “ Spe, tiou, squa—Quio didl li lulylie—Lu li 
ly lai la, lui lo, didl io quia! ” Can you hear it ? 

4. The listener is astonished to hear a volume of 
sounds so rich and full proceed from the throat of so 
small a bird. Besides its strength, its delightful variety 
and exquisite harmony make its music most admirable. 


FIFTH READER. 


57 


Sometimes it dwells on a few mournful notes, which be¬ 
gin softly, swell to its full power, and then die away. 
Sometimes it gives in quick succession a series of sharp, 
ringing tones, which it ends with the ascending notes of 
a rising chord. The birds which are free do not sing 
after midsummer, while those which are caged sing until 
November, or even until February. The young birds need 
to be under training of some older one, and will often 
surpass their teacher; few become first-rate. 

5. The nest of the nightingale is not built in the 
branches, or in a hole, or hanging in the air, or quite on 
the ground, but is very near it. It is not easily found 
unless the movements of the bird betray it. The mate¬ 
rials are straw, grass, little sticks, dried leaves, all jum¬ 
bled together with so little art that one can hardly see it 
when it is right before him. If the same materials were 
seen anywhere else, they would seem to have been blown 
together by the wind, and stopped just there by a fork in 
the branches. There are four or five smooth olive-brown 
eggs. The bird is about six inches long, and weighs 
three quarters of an ounce. Its colors are dark-brown 
above and grayish-white below. 

6. Izaak Walton says: “But the nightingale, another 
of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud music out 
of the little instrumental throat, that it might make man¬ 
kind think that miracles are not ceased. He that at mid¬ 
night, when the very laborer sleeps securely, should hear, 
as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, 
the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoub¬ 
ling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and 
say, 4 Lord, what music hast thou provided for Thy saints 
in heaven, when Thou affordest such music on earth! ’ ” 

S. H. Peabody. 


58 


FIFTH HEADER. 


For Preparation. —I. Is the nightingale alluded to most often in poems 
of American authors, or of British authors ? Luscinia (Latin name of the 
bird; it belongs to the tribe dentirostres , or tooth-billed). Philomela (the 
Greek name of the bird); see the story of Procne and Philomela, daughters 
of Pandion, and of Itys and Tereus, the first changed to a swallow, the 
second to a nightingale; note also the imitation of the notes of those birds 
in some of the names, e. g., Itys, that of the swallow, and Tereus, of the 
nightingale. Mudie wrote a work on British birds. What did Izaak Wal¬ 
ton write ? 

II. -Ch6rd (kord), night'-in-gale (nit'in-gai), la'-bor-er, weighs (waz). 

III. Meaning of est in loudest ? How would you write loud if compar¬ 
ing only two persons ? Difference in gender of she and he ? Meaning of 
un and final n in unknown ? 

IY. Rivalry, captured, pines, secure, literal version, specimen, astonished, 
exquisite, harmony, admirable, materials, miracles, securely, descants. 

Y. Note the fact that the plain-feathered birds of the temperate zone 
are better singers than the birds of the torrid zone, so noted for the beauty 
of their plumage. The former are beautiful to the ear, the latter to the eye. 
The lark and the nightingale are great favorites with the British poets ( see 
the poems of Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth, addressed to these birds; 
see also X., CXXXIX.). 


XVIII. —WINTER. 

1. When icicles hang by the wall, 

And Dick, the shepherd, blows his nail, 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 

And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 

Tu-who! 

Tu-whit, tu-who!—a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

2. When all aloud the wind doth blow, 

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw, 
And birds sit brooding in the snow, 

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw, 



FIFTH HEADER. 


89 


When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, 

Then nightly sings the staring owl, 

Tu-who! 

Tu-whit, tu-who !—a merry note, 

While Greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

William Shakespeare. 


For Preparation. —I. From “ Love’s Labor’s Lost,” Act V., Scene 2. 
The song in praise of the owl, representing winter. It is a good specimen 
of Shakespeare’s songs. 

II. I'-^i-ele (I'si-ki), shSp'-herd (-erd), fro'-zen (-zn), nlghfc'-ly (mt'-), 
grea§'-y, -e6ugh'-ing (kawf-). 

III. Shepherd (sheep-herd); frozen (explain the suffix cri ); doth ( th ); 
nipped ( ed). 

IY. Nipped, brooding. 

V. “Ways be foul ” (i. e., bad roads). Why is the owl called “star¬ 
ing ” ? “ Parson’s saw ” ( saw = a speech or sermon). “ Crabs ” (crab- 

apples). “ Keel the pot ” (cool it). 


XIX.—DOTHEBOYS HALL. 

1. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding 
over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which 
delicious compound she administered a large installment 
to each boy in succession, using for the purpose a com¬ 
mon wooden spoon, which might have been originally 
manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened 
every young gentleman’s mouth considerably, they being 
all obliged, under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the 
whole of the bowl at a gulp. 

2. There was a long row of boys waiting, with coun¬ 
tenances of no pleasant anticipation, to be treacled, and 
another file who had just escaped from the infliction, 
making a variety of wry mouths indicative of anything 




60 


FIFTH READER. 


but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley, 
ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been 
irresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, 
disorder, and disease, with which they were associated. 

3. “ Now,” said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap 
with his cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump 
out of their boots, “ is that business over % ” 

“ Just over,” said Mrs. Squeers, choking the last boy 
in her hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the 
wooden spoon to restore him. “ Here, you Smike! take 
away now. Look sharp! ” 

4. Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs. Squeers, 
having called up a little boy with a curly head, and wiped 
her hands upon it, hurried after him into a species of 
wash-house, where there was a small fire and a large ket¬ 
tle, together with a number of little wooden bowls which 
were arranged upon a board. 

5. Into these bowls Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the hun¬ 
gry servant, poured a brown composition which looked 
like diluted pincushions without the covers, and was called 
porridge. A minute wedge of brown bread was inserted 
in each bowl; and when they had eaten their porridge by 
means of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and had 
finished their breakfast; whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in 
a solemn voice, “ For what we have received, may the Lord 
make us truly thankful 1 ” and went away to his own. 

6. After some half-hour’s delay, Mr. Squeers reap¬ 
peared, and the boys took their places and their books, 
of which latter commodity the average might be about 
one to eight learners. A few minutes having elapsed, 
during which Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as if he 
had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all the 


FIFTH READER. 


61 


books, and could say every word of their contents by 
heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentleman 
called up the first class. 

7. Obedient to this summons, there ranged them¬ 
selves in front of the schoolmaster’s desk half-a-dozen 
scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, one of whom placed 
a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye. 

“ This is the first class in English spelling and philos¬ 
ophy, Nickleby,” said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to 
stand beside him. “We’ll get up a Latin one, and hand 
that over to yon. Now, then, where’s the first boy ? ” 

8. “ Please, sir, he’s cleaning the back-parlor window,” 
said the temporary head of the philosophical class. 

“ So he is, to be sure! ” rejoined Squeers. “ We go 
upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby—the regu¬ 
lar education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean; verb active, to 
make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder; a 
casement. When the boy knows this out of the book he 
goes and does it. It’s just the same principle as the use 
of the globes. Where’s the second boy ? ” 

9. “Please, sir, he’s weeding the garden,” replied a 
small voice. 

“To be sure,” said Squeers, by no means disconcert¬ 
ed, “ so he is! B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, 
bottinney; noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. 
When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge 
of plants, he goes and knows ’em. That’s our system, 
Nickleby; what do you think of it?” 

10. “It’s a very useful one, at any rate,” answered 
Nicholas, significantly. 

“ I believe you,” rejoined Squeers, not remarking the 
emphasis of his usher. “ Third boy, what’s a horse ? ” 


62 


FIFTH READER. 


“ A beast, sir,” replied the boy. 

“ So it is,” said Squeers. “ Ain’t it, Nickleby ? ” 

“ I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,” answered 
Nicholas. 

“ Of course there isn’t! ” said Squeers. 

11. “ A horse is a quadruped, and a quadruped’s Lat¬ 
in for beast, as everybody that’s gone through grammar 
knows, or else where’s the use of having grammars at 
all?” 

“ Where, indeed ? ” said Nicholas, abstractedly. 

12. “ As you are perfect in that,” resumed Squeers, 
turning to the boy, “go and look after mine; and rub him 
down well, or I’ll rub you down. The rest of the class 
go and draw water up, till somebody tells you to leave 
off; for it’s washing-day to-morrow, and they want the 
coppers filled.” 

13. So saying, he dismissed the first class to their 
experiments in practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas 
with a look, half-cunning and half-doubtful, as if he 
were not altogether certain what he might think of 
him by this time. “That’s the way we teach school 
here, Nickleby,” he said, after a pause. 

Charles Dickens. 


For Preparation.—I. “ Do-the-boys Hall ” (where they do them — vulgar¬ 
ism for “ finishing their education ”). What works of Dickens have you 
read ? From which of them is this piece taken ? 

II. De-li'-cious (-lish'us), u'-§ing, gi-gan'-ti-e, bowl (bol), w&it'-ing, 
trea'-ele (tre'ki), in-dte'-a-tive, ri-di-e'-u-loiis, foul, as-so'-ci-ate (-shl-), 
bu§'-i-ness (biz'nes), shuf'-fled (-fld), ba'-sin (-sn), spe'-cie§ (-shez), k§t'-tle 
(-ti), board, por'-ridge, mm'-ute (-it), s61'-emn (-em), tru'-ly, -eom-mbd'- 
i-ty, -e5n'-tents, troub'-le (trub'i), Sl'-bow§, prin'-^i-ple (-pi). 

III. Pincushions—separate it into two words. Do you say “ the thing 
who” or “ the thing which ” ? Correct “ The boy which I saw owns the dog 
whom you saw.” 



FIFTH READER. 


63 


IV. Presiding, administered, installment, originally, manufactured, 
obliged, corporal, penalties, anticipation, file, infliction, wry, satisfaction, at¬ 
tired, motley, ill-assorted, extraordinary, irresistibly, diluted, inserted, aver¬ 
age, elapsed, profound, apprehension, obedient, summons, ranged, scare¬ 
crows, becoming, temporary, practical, system, disconcerted, significantly, 
emphasis, usher, quadruped, abstractedly, perfect, experiments, cunning. 

V. Has this piece humor ? (Learn to discriminate the different forms of 

wit and humor, as belonging either to the ambiguity of words or style— 
puns, parody, burlesque—or to the discrepancy between intention and the 
real effect produced—irony, raillery, satire, caricature, sarcasm, comedy in 
general. The tragic as well as the comic presents us with two sides in con¬ 
flict, usually an ideal and a real. The tragic shows the destruction of the 
person, by the triumph of Nature or the right, over the wrong which was 
attempted. As man is closely tied by social relations to man, the crime of 
one often involves the injury of another who is innocent. The comic consists 
in showing the folly of the person who tries to realize projects, but selects 
utterly inadequate means. He fails, or, quite likely, produces the opposite 
of what he had intended; but, as the person is not hurt, the result is simply 
ridiculous.) Make a list of the blunders of Mr. Squeers (comic, because he 
is a teacher, intending to teach, and yet displays ignorance instead of 
knowledge). What is the witty point in connecting spelling and philos¬ 
ophy? (7). How is so-called “practical education” ridiculed here? Make 
a list of the passages in which the economy or stinginess of Squeers is 
indicated. What two applications has “useful” (10)? (profitable to the 
pupils, and profitable to Squeers ?). “ Diluted pincushions ” (i. e., the bran 

which fills them). 


XX.—AN APRIL DAY. 

1. All day tlie low-hung clouds have dropped 

Their garnered fulness down; 

All day that soft, gray mist hath wrapped 
Hill, valley, grove, and town. 

2. There has not been a sound to-day 

To break the calm of Nature; 

Nor motion, I might almost say, 

Of life, or living creature; 



64 


FIFTH READER. 


3. Of waving bough, or warbling bird, 

Or cattle faintly lowing; 

I could have half-believed I heard 

The leaves and blossoms growing. 

4. I stood to hear—I love it well— 

The rain’s continuous sound; 

Small drops, but thick and fast they fell, 
Down straight into the ground. 

5. For leafy thickness is not yet 

Earth’s naked breast to screen; 

Though every dripping branch is set 
With shoots of tender green. 

6. Sure, since I looked at early morn, 

Those honeysuckle buds 
Have swelled to double growth ; that thorn 
Hath put forth larger studs. 

7. That lilac’s cleaving cones have burst, 

The milk-white flowers revealing; 

Even now, upon my senses first 

Methinks their sweets are stealing. 

8. The very earth, the steamy air, 

Is all with fragrance rife; 

And grace and beauty everywhere 
Are flushing into life. 

9. Down, down they come—those fruitful stores, 

Those earth-rejoicing drops! 

A momentary deluge pours, 

Then thins, decreases, stops. 


FIFTH READER. 


63 


10. And ere the dimples on the stream 

Have circled out of sight, 

Lo ! from the west a parting gleam 
Breaks forth, of amber light. 

11. But yet behold—abrupt and loud, 

Comes down the glittering rain; 

The farewell of a passing Cloud, 

The fringes of her train. 

By the author of “ The Widow''s Tale , and Other Poems.” 

For Preparation.—I. This poem was printed (in a book-notice) in 
Blackwood's Magazine in 1822. In what countries could such scenes as 
are here described be seen on an April day ? 

II. -0alm (kam), -ereat'-ure (kret'yur), bough (bou), faint'-ly, be-lieved', 
ear'-ly (er'-), hon'-ey-suck'-le (hun'y-suk'i). 

III. Notice the alliteration (repetition of the same letter or sound) in the 
3d stanza (waving, warbling, bough, bird). Make a list of the rhymes of 
this piece (dropped, wrapped, down, town, etc.). 

IV. Warbling, lowing, screen, shoots, tender, green, fragrance, rife, flush¬ 
ing, deluge, decreases, dimples, “ amber light,” abrupt, “ put forth larger 
studs,” “ lilac’s cleaving cones.” 

V. What allusion in “ garnered fulness ” ? (clouds, as store-houses for 
a harvest of water ?) Note : hill, opposed to valley and grove; or forest, 
opposed to village ? Why so few sounds and so little motion on this day 
(2) ? Why cannot we hear things grow ? Does not very slow growth make 
pulsations in the air ? Are lilac-flowers generally milk-white ? (The “ Per¬ 
sian ” lilac is.) What personification in the last stanza ? 


XXI.—GOD’S DOMINION AND MAN’S DEPENDENCE. 

i. 

1. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; 
the world, and-they that dwell therein. 

2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and estab¬ 
lished it upon the floods. 




66 


FIFTH READER. 


3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or 
who shall stand in his holy place ? 

4. He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who 
hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceit¬ 
fully. 

5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and 
righteousness from the God of his salvation. 

6. This is the generation of them that seek him, that 
seek thy face, O Jacob. 

7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted 
up, ye everlasting doors; and. the King of glory shall 
come in. 

8. Who is this King of glory ? The Lord strong and 
mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 

9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, 
ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 

10. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, 
he is the King of glory. 

H. 

11. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all 
generations. 

12. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever 
thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 

13. Thou turnest man to destruction ; and sayest, 
Return, ye children of men. 

14. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yes¬ 
terday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. 

15. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they 
are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which 
groweth up. 


FIFTH READER. 


67 


16. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; 
in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. 

11. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy 
wrath are we troubled. 

18. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret 
sins in the light of thy countenance. 

19. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: 
we spend our years as a tale that is told. 

20. The days of our years are threescore years and 
ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, 
yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut 
off, and we fly away. 

21. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even 
according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. 

22. So teach us to number our days, that we may ap¬ 
ply our hearts unto wisdom. 

_ Psalms XX IV. and XC. 

For Preparation.— I. Compare these passages with Psalms CIV., 
XXIII., XIX. {See LXXXIX., II., CIII.) 

II. In-iq'-ui-tie§, strength, de-geit'-ful-ly, doorg. 

III. The forms thereof, therein, thereto, etc., are not used as much now 
as they were when the Bible was translated. What other words in this 
piece characteristic of “ solemn style ” ? 

IV. Destruction, “ watch in the night,” withereth. 

V. Explain the sense in which “ generation ” is used (6). 


XXII.—THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

1. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts w r ere gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 




68 


FIFTH HEADER. 


2. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath flown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 

3. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew 

still! 

4. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

5. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 

6. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 

And their idols are broke in the temple of Baal; 

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 

Lord Byron. 


For Preparation. —I. Where was Assyria ? (Ashur = Assyria.)—Gal¬ 
ilee ? Who were the “ widows of Ashur ” ?—Baal ?—The Gentile ? Read 
2 Kings xix. 35 for the biblical account of this incident. 

II. Heaved, nbs'-tril, ban'-ner§, mSr'-row, for'-est, foe. 

III. “Idols are broke” (broken); unsmote (un and smote or smitten ); 
strown (and strewn); separate the lines of the 1st stanza into feet, and 
mark the accented syllables. (See XC., Poetic Reading, iii. and iv.) With 
what do you begin a sentence or line of poetry, a name of a person or object 
personified, the name of God, the name of a particular place, or the name 
given to any special individual animal or thing ? 



FIFTH READER. 


69 


IV. Cohorts, sheen, “ purple and gold ” (who wore purple ?). 

V. Do you observe anything in the rhythm of the first line that reminds 
you of the movement of a wild beast as it bounds toward its prey ? What 
things are contrasted in the 2d stanza ?—in the 4th (nostrils wide, but no 
breath). Note the order of description: (1st stanza) Glorious onset of 
Assyrian cavalry. (2) Their Summer becomes Autumn. (3) Sleep turned 
to death by the angel. (4) The horses. (5) The riders. (6) The mourning; 
Breaking down of their religion—Baal. The progress of the description 
is from the vague statement to the vivid picture with all its details, and 
from the brute to the human; and finally it ends in the intensely human 
relations of the family (widows) and religion. 


XXIII.—HOW TO RENDER NOBLE IDEAS. 

Such ideas as are represented by the words great and 
good, honorable, heroic, grand, sublime, glorious, magnifi¬ 
cent, mighty, royal, kingly, manly, womanly, reverential, 
holy, heavenly, Godlike, etc., are included in this class. 

“ Quality ” and u volume ”• of voice are essential 
elements in the finer work of emotional expression. 

Quality, as here used, refers to the kind of tone, as 
“jpure ” or “ aspirated.” When all the breath exhaled 
in making a vowel sound is vocalized, the tone is “pure ” 
in quality. When only a part of the breath thus used is 
vocalized, the tone is “ aspirated ” in quality. 

Pure quality, like smooth stress of voice, is pleasing, 
and therefore naturally expresses what is pleasing in 
spirit , such as joyous and noble ideas. 

Aspirated quality, like abrupt stress of voice, is dis¬ 
pleasing , and so as naturally expresses what is disagree¬ 
able or ignoble in spirit. 

Volume of voice refers to th q fullness or thinness of 
tone. u Full volume” naturally magnifies, and “Thin 
volume” minifies expression. Hence the great use of 
full volume in expressing noble ideas. 



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FIFTH READER. 


The chief characteristic in the vocal expression of 
this noble spirit is “full volume ” and “ long quantity ” 
on the open emphatic vowels, and “ smooth f swelling 
(median) “stress.” The “force” varies from “mod¬ 
erate” to “loudf and the “time” from “moderate” to 
“ slow.” The “ slide ” is “ long,” as in the utterance of 
earnest ideas, and the quality “jpure.” 

EXAMPLE. 

“ And had he not high honor ?— 

The hill-side for his pall; 

To lie in state while angels wait, 

With stars for tapers tall; 

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes 
Over his bier to wave ; 

And God’s own hand, in that lonely land, 

To lay him in the grave.” 

{From “ The Burial of Moses,” by Mrs. Alexander.) 

Analysis. —Keep in mind that the poet is describing 
the burial of “ Moses,” and that whatever is common to 
all burials of the great cannot be characteristic of this 
special burial, and so cannot be emphatic; while the 
points of difference between this and other great burials 
do give it a distinct individuality, and therefore are em¬ 
phatic. 

“ And had he not high' honor ? ” “ High” as some¬ 

thing greater than the customary honors, is a distinctive, 
emphatic idea. The writer does not ask in doubt, but 
in confident assurance of the fact; this is, therefore, a 
positive appeal, and should be read with the falling 
slide. 

To have [something] “ for his pall ” ; “ to lie in state 
while [mortals] wait;” “with tapers tall;” and “like 


FIFTH READER. 


71 


tossing plumes over his bier to wave;” “and [some 
kind] hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in the grave;” 
—these are all common ideas, which do not distinguish 
this burial of Moses from the burials of other great men, 
and so are not emphatic. 

But the “ hill'-side for his pall,” in place of the 
ordinary covering, while “ angels' ”— (not mortals) — 
wait, with “stars'” for tapers, and “dark rock^Ws'” 
for tossing plumes, and “ God’s' own hand ”—these are 
the great distinctive ideas which characterize this par¬ 
ticular burial and distinguish it from all others, and 
are therefore most emphatic . 

EXAMPLE. 

“ This was the noblest ' Homan of them all. 

All the conspirators , save only he\ 

Did that they did in envy' of great Caesar ' / 

He only, in a general honest thought 
And common good to alP, made one of them. 

His life was gentle' ; and the elements 
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, 

And say to all the world, 6 This was a man' ! ’ ” 

(From “Julius Caesar” “Mark Antony on the Death of Brutus” by 
Shakespeare.) 

Directions.—Read the first example according to the 
analysis, and give any reasons you can for the marking in 
the second example. Observe the use of “ gentle ” in its 
old English sense of noble; as in “Henry V.,” speaking of 
any soldier who should fight in the battle of Agincourt: 

“ Be he ne’er so vile, 

This day shall gentle his condition ”— 

that is, ennoble—make a gentleman of him. Why is 
“ man ” so emphatic ? 


72 


FIFTH READER. 


XXIV.—EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES. 

1. A volcano is an opening made in the earth’s crust 
by internal heat, which has forced melted or heated mat¬ 
ter through the rent. An earthquake is the effect of the 
confined gases and vapors, produced by the heat upon 
the crust. When the volcano, therefore, gets vent, the 
earthquake always ceases; but the latter has generally 
been more destructive of life than the former. 

2. Where one city has been destroyed by lava, like 
Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabise, twenty have been 
shaken down by the rocking and heaving of earthquakes. 
The records of ancient as well as modern times abound 
with examples of these tremendous catastrophes. Pre¬ 
eminent on the list is the city of Antioch. 

3. Imagine the inhabitants of that great city, crowded 
with strangers on a festival occasion, suddenly arrested 
on a calm day by the earth heaving and rocking beneath 
their feet; and in a few moments two hundred and fifty 
thousand of them are buried by falling houses, or the 
earth opening and swallowing them up. 

4. Such was the scene which that city presented in 
the year 526; and several times before and since that 
period has the like calamity fallen upon it; and twenty, 
forty, and sixty thousand of its inhabitants have been 
destroyed at each time. In the year 17 after Christ, no 
less than thirteen cities in Asia Minor were, in like 
manner, overwhelmed in a single night. 

5. Think of the terrible destruction that came upon 
Lisbon in 1775. The sun had just dissipated the fog in 
a warm, calm morning, when suddenly the subterranean 
thundering and heaving began; and in six minutes the 


FIFTH READER. 


73 


city was a heap of ruins, and sixty thousand of the inhab¬ 
itants were numbered among the dead. Hundreds had 
crowded upon a new quay surrounded by vessels. In a 
moment the earth opened beneath them, and the wharf, 
the vessels, and the crowd went down into its bosom; 
the gulf closed, the sea rolled over the spot, and no ves¬ 
tige of wharf, vessels, or man ever floated to the sur¬ 
face. 

6. How thrilling is the account left us by Kircher, who 
was near, of the destruction of Euphemia, in Calabria, a 
city of about five thousand inhabitants, in the year 1638! 
“After some time,” says he, “the violent paroxysm of 
the earthquake ceasing, I stood up, and, turning my eyes 
to look for Euphemia, saw only a frightful black cloud. 
We waited till it had passed away, when nothing but a 
dismal and putrid lake was to be seen where the city 
once stood.” In like manner did Port Royal, in the 
West Indies, sink beneath the waters with nearly all its 
inhabitants, in less than one minute, in the year 1692. 

T. Still more awful, though usually less destructive, 
is often the scene presented by a volcanic eruption. 
Imagine yourselves, for instance, upon one of the wide, 
elevated plains of Mexico, far from the fear of volca¬ 
noes. The earth begins to quake under your feet, and 
the most alarming subterranean noises admonish you 
of a mighty power within the earth that must soon have 
vent. 

8. You flee to the surrounding mountains in time to 
look back and see ten square miles of the plain swell up, 
like a bladder, to the height of five hundred feet, while 
numerous smaller cones rise from the surface still higher, 
and emit smoke; and, in their midst, six mountains are 
thrown up to the height, some of them at least, of sixteen 


74 


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hundred feet, and pour forth melted lava; turning rivers 
out of their course, and spreading terrific desolation over 
a late fertile plain, and forever excluding its former in¬ 
habitants. Such was the eruption by which Jorullo, in 
Mexico, was suddenly thrown up in 1759. 

9. Still more terrific have been some of the eruptions 
in Iceland. In 1783 earthquakes of tremendous power 
shook the whole island, and flames burst forth from the 
ocean. In June these ceased, and Skaptar Jokul opened 
its mouth; nor did it close till it had poured forth two 
streams of lava, one sixty miles long and twelve miles 
broad, and the other forty miles long and seven broad, 
and both with an average thickness of one hundred feet. 
During that summer the inhabitants saw the sun no 
more, and all Europe was covered with a haze. 

10. Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest 
mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were repos¬ 
ing in peace. But in August, 1772, a remarkable lumi¬ 
nous cloud, enveloping its top, aroused them from their 
security. But it was too late; for at once the mountain 
began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared, 
with the forty villages and most of the inhabitants, over 
a space fifteen miles long and six broad. 

11. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on 
record, was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca 
Islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and 
did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in 
one direction nine hundred and seventy miles. So heavy 
was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles, that 
houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders 
in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet 
thick, and the vessels were forced through them with 
difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles 


FIFTH READER. 


7S 


distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and finally, 
out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, 
only twenty-six survived the catastrophe. 

Edward Hitchcock. 


For Preparation. — I. Find, on the map, Hercula'neum, Pompeii (pro¬ 
nounced Pom-pSy'-yS), Stabise, Antioch, Asia Minor, Lisbon, Euphemia, Ca¬ 
labria, Port Royal, Jorullo, Skaptar Jokul, Papandayang', Sumbawa. 

II. Tre-mgn'-dous, -ea-tas'-tro-pheg, an'-cient (-shent), quay (ke), 
ex-tra6r'-di-na-ry (-tror'-), e-rup'-tion, £in'-der§. 

III. Make a list of the names of objects in this piece that express more 
than one, and underscore the part of the word which is changed to express 
this (e. g., gas-cs, vapor-s, earthquake-^, etc.). 

IV. Admonish, catastrophe, vapors, rent, calamity, subterranean, ves¬ 
tige, paroxysm, awful, emit, lava, luminous, haze, security, survived, pre¬ 
eminent, overwhelmed, dissipated. 

V. Can you explain why people should still be willing to live in a city 
where so many destructive earthquakes have occurred as at Antioch ? 
Draw lines on the map of the world connecting the volcanoes, and notice 
whether the lines run near the ocean or not, and in what zone. 


XXV. —SU N DAY. 

1. O Day most calm, most bright! 

The fruit of this, the next world’s bud; 

The endorsement of supreme delight, 

Writ by a Friend, and with his blood; 

The couch of Time; Care’s calm and bay: 
The week were dark but for thy light; 

Thy torch doth show the way. 

2. The other days and thou 

Make up one man; whose face thou art, 
Knocking at heaven with thy brow; 

The working-days are the back part: 





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The burden of the week lies there ; 

Making the whole to stoop and bow, 

Till thy release appear. 

3. Man had straight-forward gone 
To endless death : but thou dost pull 

And turn us round, to look on One, 

Whom, if we were not very dull, 

We could not choose but look on still; 

Since there is no place so alone 
The which He doth not fill. 

4. Sundays the pillars are 

On which heaven’s palace arched lies ; 

The other days fill up the spare 
And hollow room with vanities; 

They are the fruitful beds and borders 
In God’s rich garden ; that is bare 
Which parts their ranks and orders. 

George Herbert. 


For Preparation.— I. Izaak Walton, the fisherman, calls the author of 
this piece the “ Holy Herbert ” (XLV.). 

II. Fruit (frut), en-d6rse'-ment, re-lease', straight (strat), pal'-a^e, 
van'-i-tie§, kn6ck'-ing (nok'). 

III. Make a list of the various metaphors under which Herbert describes 
Sunday. What meanings do the following endings give to the words where 
they are found ?—ne in gone ;—st in dost ;—y in thy ;—se in whose. 

IV. “ Arched.” “ Ranks and orders.” 

V. “ The next world’s bud ” (i. e., the fruit of this world is only the bud 
of what is to develop in the next). “ Endorsement ” (on the back of a 
“promise to pay”). “Writ by” what “Friend”? “Time’s couch.” 
“ Care’s calm ” (ocean calm) and bay (sheltered from the winds). “ The 
working-days are the back” (a burden on the back), “making the whole 
(body) to stoop and bow.” Sundays are the pillars, and week-days the rub¬ 
bish stored between; Sundays the rich garden-beds, and the week-days the 
barren paths between them (4). 



FIFTH READER. 


77 


XXVI.—THE RESCUE OF A KITTEN. 

1. This gale continued till toward noon; when the 
east end of the island bore but a little ahead of us. The 
captain swaggered, and declared that he would keep the 
sea; but the wind got the better of him, so that about 
three he gave up the victory, and making a sudden tack, 
stood in for the shore, passed by Spithead and Portsmouth, 
and came to an anchor at a place called Hyde, on the 
island. 

2. A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea, 
while the ship was under sail, but making, as will appear, 
no great way. A kitten, one of four of the feline inhab¬ 
itants of the cabin, fell from the window into the water; 
an alarm was given immediately to the captain, who was 
then upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern 
and many bitter oaths. 

3. He immediately gave orders to the steersman in 
favor of the 66 poor thing,” as he called it; the sails w T ere 
instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, em¬ 
ployed to recover the poor animal. I was, I own, ex¬ 
tremely surprised at all this; less, indeed, at the captain’s 
extreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility 
of success; for, if puss had had nine thousand instead of 
nine lives, I concluded they had been all lost. 

4. The boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes; 
for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and 
shirt, he leaped boldly into the water, and, to my great 
astonishment, in a few minutes returned to the ship, 
bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. Hor was 
this, I observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it ap¬ 
peared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that 
of my fresh-water reader. The kitten was now exposed 


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to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it re¬ 
tained no symptoms, was despaired of by all. 

5. The captain’s humanity, if I may so call it, did not 
so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him yield 
himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. 
Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to show he 
could bear it like one; and, having declared he had 
rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself 
to threshing at backgammon with the Portuguese friar, 
in which innocent amusement they had passed about two- 
thirds of their time. 

6. But as I have, perhaps, a little too wantonly en¬ 
deavored to raise the tender passions of my readers in 
this narrative, I should think myself unpardonable if I 
concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of hear¬ 
ing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the 
good captain, but to the great disappointment of some of 
the sailors, who asserted that the drowning a cat was the 
very surest way of raising a favorable wind: a supposition 
of which, though we have heard several plausible accounts, 
we will not presume to assign the true original reason. 

Henry Fielding. 


For Preparation.— I. Where is Spithead ?—Portsmouth ?—Ryde ? 

II. Swag'-gered (-gerd), in-hab'-it-ants, -eon-^ern', steer§'-man, 
phra§e, €on-$6iv'-ing, pos-si-bil'-i-ty, boat'-swain (boB'n). 

III. Make a list of the sailors’ words and phrases in the piece (nautical 
language). The drowning [of] a cat ” (when “ the ” is used before a par¬ 
ticiple ending in ing , “ of ” should be used after it). 

IY. Feline, slackened, sanguine, backgammon, “ making a sudden tack,” 
“ about three (o’clock) he gave up the victory,” “ stood in for the shore,” 
“ came to an anchor,” “ tragical incident fell out,” “ making no great way,” 
“ under sail,” “ sails slackened,” wantonly, plausible, “ east end bore but 
little ahead of us ” (“ bear ” means, in sailor’s language, to be situated in a 
direction). 



FIFTH READER. 


79 


Y. Is this piece sober, or satirical ? Is the occupation of sailors such as 
to make them tender, or rough, in their feelings ?—careful of life, or care¬ 
less of it? Would not this piece be very ludicrous to a people like the 
English, who are all quite familiar with the manners and habits of sailors ? 
Note the points of contrast: Swaggering captain; bitter oaths and utmost 
concern at the loss of one of four cats; stopped the vessel; one of the high 
officers of the boat throws off his clothes, and risks his life in the sea; saves 
the kitten in his mouth ; general despair of the life of the animal; recov¬ 
ery ; great joy of the captain. Then a hint is thrown in at the real feeling of 
sailors, who believe that the drowning of a cat will bring a favorable wind. 
Note the mock pathetic of the description: “ tragical incident,” etc. 


XXVII.—SUNSET ON THE BORDER. 

1. Day set on Norham’s castled steep, 

And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep. 

And Cheviot’s mountains lone; 

The battled towers, the donjon keep, 

The loop-hole grates where captives weep, 
The flanking walls that round it sweep, 

In yellow lustre shone. 

2. The warriors on the turrets high, 

Moving athwart the evening sky, 

Seemed forms of giant height; 

Their armor, as it caught the rays, 
Flashed back again the western blaze, 

In lines of dazzling light. 

3. St. George’s banner, broad and gay, 

Now faded, as the fading ray 

Less bright, and less, was flung; 

The evening gale had scarce the power 
To wave it on the donjon tower, 

So heavily it hung. 



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4. The scouts had parted on their search, 

The castle gates were barred ; 

Above the gloomy portal arch, 

Timing his footsteps to a march, 

The warder kept his guard, 

Low humming, as he paced along, 

Some ancient border-gathering song. 

5. A distant tramping sound he hears; 

He looks abroad, and soon appears, 

O’er Horncliff hill, a plump of spears 

Beneath a pennon gay : 

A horseman, darting from the crowd, 

Like lightning from a summer cloud, 

Spurs on his mettled courser proud, 

Before the dark array. 

6. Beneath the sable palisade, 

That closed the castle barricade, 

His bugle-horn he blew ; 

The warder hasted from the wall, 

And warned the captain in the hall, 

For well the blast he knew ; 

And joyfully that knight did call 
To sewer, squire, and seneschal. 

Walter Scott. 


For Preparation.— I. From Scott’s “Marmion”: the opening verseo 
describing a scene very common on the border-line between England and 
Scotland in the days before these two countries were united under one 
king. Point out on the map the Tweed, Cheviot Hills, and Flodden Field, 
where the battle subsequently described in “ Marmion ” was fought. 

II. Don'-jon ( dUn'geon ), lus'-tre, tur'-rets, sen'-es-glial (-e-shal). 

III. Norham (North Home = North Town—situated in the north of 
England). Make a list of the words of the lesson that begin with capitals, 
and opposite each write the reason for it. Note the rhymes of search with 



FIFTH READER. 


81 


arch, march, and of lone with shone (possibly Scott pronounced these so as 
to make perfect rhymes). 

IV. Castled steep, battled towers, flanking walls, athwart, pennon, 
mettled, palisade, barricade, warder, sewer, squire, seneschal. 

V. What kind of armor is implied in the description “flashed back again 
the western blaze ” ? Was Norham Castle in the hands of the English, or of 
the Scotch ? (indicated by the “ banner ” ?) “ Plump of spears ” (plump = 
cluster). 


XXVIII.—THE COYOTE. 

1. The coyote of the farther deserts is a long, slim, 
sick, and sorry-looking skeleton with a gray wolf-skin 
stretched over it, a tolerably bnshy tail that forever sags 
down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and 
misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, 
with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. 

2. He has a general slinking expression all over. 
The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of want. lie 
is always hungry. lie is always poor, out of luck, and 
friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even 
the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so 
spiritless and cowardly that, even while his exposed teeth 
are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing 
for it. And he is so homely! so scrawny, and ribby, 
and coarse-haired, and pitiful! 

3. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash 
of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course 
he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a 
long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing 
over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is 
about out of easy pistol-range, and then he stops and 
takes a deliberate survey of you. He will trot fifty 
yards and stop again; another fifty, and stop again; and, 



82 


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finally, the gray of his gliding body blends with the 
gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears. 

4. But, if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you 
will enjoy it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that 
has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up 
to think that he knows something about speed. The 
coyote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot 
of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful 
smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full 
of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make him 
lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his 
neck farther to the front, and pant more fiercely, and 
move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and 
leave a broader and broader and higher and denser cloud 
of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long 
wake across the level plain ! 

5. All this time the dog is only a short twenty feet 
behind the coyote, and, to save the life of him, he cannot 
understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; 
and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him mad¬ 
der and madder to see how gently the coyote glides along, 
and never pants or sweats, or ceases to smile; and he 
grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully 
he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an 
ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is. 

6. And next the dog notices that he is getting fagged, 
and that the coyote actually has to slacken speed a little, to 
keep from running away from him. And then that town- 
dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain, and weep, 
and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach 
for the coyote with concentrated and desperate energy. 

7. This spurt finds him six feet behind the gliding 
enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in 


FIFTH READER. 


83 


the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, 
the coyote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, 
and'with a something about it which seems to say: 

8. “ Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, 
but—business is business, and it will not do for me to be 
fooling along this way all day.” And forthwith there is 
a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack 
through the atmosphere, and behold, that dog is solitary 
and alone in the midst of a vast solitude! 

& L. Clemens (.Mark Twain). 


For Preparation. — I. From Mark Twain’s “ Roughing It.” The ludi¬ 
crous may be found in the use of words which develop two meanings—one 
of them absurdly opposite to the one intended; or it may be found in 
actions which are very inadequate for the purpose intended. Note the 
efforts of the dog in this piece. 

II. -Oo-yote' (or ki-ot'e, spelled also cayote), ve-lft^'-i-pede, es-p&'-cial-ly 
(-pesh'al-), o-pin'-ion (-yun), de-seit'-ful, fraud'-ful, fierce'-ly (feers'-), 
in-sensed'. 

III. What is the absurdity of the assertion, “ even the fleas,” etc. (2)? 

IV. Furtive, allegory, pretending, apologizing, ambition, frenzy, ig¬ 
noble, scrawny, wake (track). 

V. The humor of this piece turns for the most part on the human con¬ 
sciousness which the author gives to the coyote and to the dog. Note, in 
the description, the expressions “ ignoble swindle,” “ pretending a threat,” 
“ apologizing for it,” “ smile a fraudful smile,” “ encouragement and world¬ 
ly ambition,” eta Explain “ sudden splitting of a long crack through the 
atmosphere.” 


XXIX.—FOR A’ THAT, AND A’ THAT. 

1. Is there for honest poverty 

Wha hangs his head, and a’ that ? 
The coward slave, we pass him by ; 

We dare be poor for a’ that. 





FIFTH READER. 


For a’ that, and a’ that, 

Our toils obscure, and a’ that; 

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp— 

The man’s the gowd for a’ that. 

2. What though on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hodden gray, and a’ that; 

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine- 
A man’s a man for a’ that. 

For a’ that, and a’ that, 

Their tinsel show, and a’ that; 

The honest man, though e’er sae poor, 

Is king o’ men for a’ that. 

3. Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, and a’ that— 
Though hundreds worship at his word, 
He’s but a coof for a’ that. 

For a’ that, and a’ that, 

His riband, star, and a’ that; 

The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a’ that. 

4. A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a’ that; 

But an honest man’s aboon his might— 
Guid faith, he maunna fa’ that! 

For a’ that, and a’ that, 

Their dignities, and a’ that; 

The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worth 
Are higher ranks than a’ that. 

5. Then let us pray, that come it may— 

As come it will, for a’ that— 

That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth. 
May bear the gree, and a’ that. 


FIFTH READER. 


85 


For a’ that, and a’ that, 

It’s coming yet, for a’ that— 

When man to man, the warld o'er, 

Shall brothers he for a’ that! 

Robert Burns. 


For Preparation. —I. A list of the Scotch words in this poem, and 
their equivalent English expressions: Wha for who, a' for all, gowd for 
gold, hamely for homely, hodden gray for homespun, undyed woolen cloth, 
gie for give, sae for so, birkie for conceited fellow, ca'd for called, coof for 
blockhead, mak for make, aboon for above, guid for good, maunna for must 
not, warld for world, fa' for try, bear the gree for may be victors. 

II. Knave§ (navz), guin'-ea (gin'-e), e’er (ar), laughs (lafs), dig'-ni- 
tie§. 

III. What is omitted in man's, it's (5), o'er ? 

IV. “Toils obscure,” “tinsel show,” riband, star, “belted knight,” 
marquis, duke, pith, “ aboon his might ” (above his power to make). 

V. Arrange in one list the qualities and possessions of the poor man, 
and in another those of the rich or noble, as mentioned in this piece. 


XXX.—HOW TO RENDER JOYOUS IDEAS. 

Ideas represented by such words as animated, lively, 
gay, merry, pleasing, happy, exquisite, lovely, beautiful, 
delightful, charming, etc., are included under this head. 

Quick, swelling, “ smooth stress ,” and “pure quality ,” 
are the special vocal elements in the expression of this 
joyous spirit. The “ time ” grows “ faster ” and the 
“ force louder ” as the degree of joyousness accumulates. 
The “ slides ” are long, as in the expression of earnest 
and noble ideas. 

EXAMPLES. 

“ What change' has made the pastures sweet', 

And reached the daisies' at my feet, 




86 


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And clouds' that wore a golden hem ? 

This lovely worldly the hills, the sward , 

They all look fresh', as if our Lord 
But yesterday' had finished them.” 

(Jean Ingelow.) 

“ It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the 
Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and 
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed 
to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above 
the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere 
she just began to move in, glittering like the morning- 
star, full of life and splendor and joy.” 

(Burke.) 

JOYOUS AND NOBLE IDEAS. 

When this joyous spirit blends with noble ideas, the 
same “pure quality” and “long slides” are required, 
but the “ smooth stress ” swells into “ larger volume ” 
and “ longer quantity ” than mere joyousness demands. 

EXAMPLE. 

“ How glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories 
are! 

And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Ha- 
varre! 

How let there be the merry sound of music and the 
dance, 

Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleas¬ 
ant land of France! 

And thou, Rochelle—our own Rochelle—proud city of 
the waters, 

Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning 
daughters: 

As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, 


FIFTH READER. 


87 


For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy 
walls annoy. 

Hurrah! hurrah! A single field hath turned the chance 
of war! 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! for Ivry and Henry of Navarre ! 

(From “ The Battle of Ivry” by Macaulay.) 

The great knight, Sir Lancelot, is praising King 
Arthur in his wars against the heathen, in the presence 
of “ the lily-maid of Astolat,” Elaine : 

“ On the mount 

Of Badon I myself beheld the king 
Charge at the head of all his Table Bound, 

And all his legions crying Christ and him, 

And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 
Bed as the rising sun with heathen blood; 

And, seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 

‘ They are broken! they are broken!’ For the king, 
However mild he seems at home, nor cares 
For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts— 

For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs, 
Saying his knights are better men than he— 

Yet, in this heathen war, the fire of God 
Fills him ! I never saw his like ! There lives 
No greater leader.” 

“ While he uttered this, 

Low to her own heart said the lily-maid, 

‘ Save your great self, fair lord ! ’ When he fell 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry, 

Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind, 

There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
. Of manners and of nature ; and she thought 
That all was nature—all, perchance, for her. 


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And all night long his face before her lived, 

As when a painter, poring on a face, 

Divinely through all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 

The shape and color of a mind and life, 

Lives for his children, ever at its best 
And fullest; so the face before her lived : 

Dark, splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep.” 

(From “ Elaineone of the “Idyls of the King" by Tennyson.) 


XXXI —MIGNON’S SONG. 

1. “ Know’st thou the land where citron-apples bloom, 
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom, 

A gentle wind from deep-blue heaven blows, 

The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows ? 

Know’st thou it, then ? 

’Tis there! ’tis there, 

O my true loved one, thou with me must go! 

2. “ Know’st thou the house, its porch with pillars 

tall? 

The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall, 

And marble statues stand, and look each one: 

What’s this, poor child, to thee they’ve done ? 
Know’st thou it, then ? 

’Tis there ! ’tis there, 

O my protector, thou with me must go! 

3. “ Know’st thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on 

cloud: 

The mules in mist grope o’er the torrent loud, 



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89 


In caves lie coiled the dragon’s ancient brood, 

The crag leaps down, and over it the flood: 

Know’st thou it, then ? 

’Tis there! ’tis there 

Our way runs; O my father, wilt thou go? ” 

4. Next morning, on looking for Mignon about the 
house, Wilhelm did not find her, but was informed that 
she had gone out early with Melina, who had risen be¬ 
times to receive the wardrobe and other apparatus of his 
theatre. 

After the space of some hours, Wilhelm heard the 
sound of music before his door. At first he thought it 
was the harper come again to visit him; but he soon dis¬ 
tinguished the tones of a cithern, and the voice which 
began to sing was Mignon’s. Wilhelm opened the 
door; the child came in, and sang him the song we have 
just given above. 

5. The music and general expression of it pleased our 
friend extremely, though he could not understand all the 
words. He made her once more repeat the stanzas, and 
explain them ; he wrote them down, and translated them 
into his native language. But the originality of its turns 
he could imitate only from afar; its childlike innocence 
of expression vanished from it in the process of reducing 
its broken phraseology to uniformity, and combining its 
disjointed parts. The charm of the tune, moreover, was 
entirely incomparable. 

6. She began every verse in a stately and solemn man¬ 
ner, as if she wished to draw attention toward something 
wonderful—as if she had something weighty to commu¬ 
nicate. In the third line her tones became deeper and 
gloomier; the “ Know’st thou it, then ? ” was uttered with 


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a show of mystery and eager circumspectness; in the “ ’Tis 
there! ’tis there! ” lay a boundless longing; and her “ with 
me must go! ” she modified at each repetition, so that now 
it appeared to entreat and implore, now to impel and per¬ 
suade. 

7. On finishing her song for the second time, she 
stood silent for a moment, looked keenly at Wilhelm, and 
asked him, “ Knovlst thou the land ? ” “ It must mean 

Italy,” said Wilhelm; “ where didst thou get the little 
song? ” “ Italy! ” said Mignon, with an earnest air. “ If 
thou go to Italy, take me along with thee; for I am too 
cold here.” “ Hast thou been there already, little dear ? ” 
said Wilhelm. But the child was silent, and nothing 
more could be got oat of her. 

Goethe (Thomas Carlyle's Translation). 


For Preparation. —I. Mignon, a little girl, has been stolen in her in¬ 
fancy from her beautiful home in Italy by a band of strolling acrobats, who 
bring her up as a dancing-girl. She is rescued from their cruel treatment 
by Wilhelm Meister, and adopted. She cannot tell anything of her origin, 
but one morning sings this song to him. This incident is supposed to take 
place in Southern Germany, and is related in Goethe’s “ Wilhelm Meister.” 
By a strange coincidence, Mignon’s father, who had become deranged and is 
wandering about the country as a harper, makes his appearance at the place 
where Wilhelm is staying, and, without recognizing Mignon as his lost child, 
is attracted (instinctively) by her, and we are left to infer that he taught 
her this song. 

II. Hyr'-tle (mer'tl), lau'-rel, pil'-lar§, an'-cient (-shent), stan'-za§, 
in-e6m'-pa-ra-ble, weight'-y (wat'->, mys'-ter-y, per'-suade' (-swad'), Mi- 
gnon' (Men-ydn'). 

IIL “ If thou go ”—why not say, “ If thou goest ” ? Mark off the feet 
and accented syllables in the lines of the 1st stanza. 

IV. Crag, originality, vanished, process, phraseology, uniformity, dis¬ 
jointed, repetition. 

V. Make a list of things mentioned in the poem that indicate Italian 
scenery. Is there an element of home-sickness in this poem ? Compare it 



FIFTH READER. 


91 


with Mrs. Hemans’s Adopted Child and Hood’s I Remember. Note par¬ 
ticularly Goethe’s description of the style of singing this song. “ The bridge 
that hangs on cloud ” (the mists from below shutting out of view the piers 
that sustain it). 


XXXII.—THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

1. The thirteen original colonies—“ The old Thirteen,” 
as they were often called—were New Hampshire, Massa¬ 
chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. All the 
rest of the present States were made from these, or from 
territory added to these. The history of our country 
down to the Revolution is, therefore, the history of these 
thirteen colonies. 

2. Each of the thirteen had something peculiar in its 
history to distinguish it from the rest. To begin with, 
they were established by several different nations. Most 
of them were founded by Englishmen; but New York 
and New Jersey were settled by the Dutch, and Dela¬ 
ware by the Swedes ; while the Carolinas were first ex¬ 
plored and named by a French colony. 

3. Most of them were founded by small parties of 
settlers, among whom no great distinctions of rank ex¬ 
isted. Two of them—Pennsylvania and Maryland—had 
each a single proprietor, who owned the whole soil. New 
York had its “ patroons,” or large landholders, with ten¬ 
ants under them. 

4. Most of them were founded by those who fled 
from religious persecutions in Europe. Yet one of them 
—Rhode Island—was made up largely from those perse¬ 
cuted in another colony ; and another—Maryland—was 



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founded by Roman Catholics. Some had charter gov¬ 
ernments, some had royal governments without char¬ 
ters, and others were governed by the original proprie¬ 
tors, or those who represented them. 

5. They were all alike in some things, however much 
they differed in others. They all had something of local 
self-government; that is, each community, to a greater or 
less extent, made and administered its own laws. More¬ 
over, they all became subject to Great Britain at last, 
even if they had not been first settled by Englishmen. 
Finally, they all grew gradually discontented with the 
British Government, because they thought themselves ill- 
treated. This discontent made them at last separate 
themselves from England, and form a complete union 
with one another. But this was not accomplished with¬ 
out a war—the war commonly called the American Revo¬ 
lution. 

6. When the troubles began, most of the people sup¬ 
posed themselves to be very loyal, and they were ready 
to shout, “ God save King George ! ” Even after they 
had raised armies, and had begun to fight, the Conti¬ 
nental Congress said, “ We have not raised armies with 
the ambitious design of separating from Great Britain, 
and establishing independent States.” 

7. They would have been perfectly satisfied to go on 
as they were, if the British Government had only treated 
them in a manner they thought just; that is, if Great 
Britain either had not taxed them, or had let them 
send representatives to Parliament in return for pay¬ 
ing taxes. 

• 

8. This wish was considered perfectly reasonable by 
many of the wisest Englishmen of the day. But King 


FIFTH READER. 


93 


George III. and his advisers would not consent; and so 
they lost not only the opportunity of taxing the Ameri¬ 
can colonies, but finally the colonies themselves. 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 


For Preparation.—I. Adapted from Higginson’s “ Young Folks’ His¬ 
tory of the United States.” Who was King George III. ? What was the 
Continental Congress? Was it like our Congress? What was the Con¬ 
gress of Great Britain called ? 

II. SSp'-a-rate, Par'-lia-ment (-1I-), tSr'-ri-to-ry, -GSn-nect'-i-eiit 
(-net'-), Mas-sa-chu'-setts, P&nn-syl-va'-nia, Ge6r'-gi-a, pa-troon§'. 

III. Make a list of ten describing-words used in the above lesson, and 
write after each the name-word of its object—e. g., “ thirteen colonies,” 
“ present States,” etc. 

IV. Original, colonies, peculiar, established, explored, proprietor, ten¬ 
ants, persecutions, “charter governments,” local, community, gradually, 
loyal, ambition, satisfied. 

V. “ Distinctions of rank ”—explain this phrase, and give an example 
of such distinctions that exist in England. Explain in your own words 
what “ local self-government ” is. Do you think it important ? Tell some 
evils that occur where it does not exist. Explain the expression, “ adminis¬ 
ter its own laws.” Does the Legislature, or law-making power, administer 
the laws ? Do the courts of law ? Does the President, the Governor, or 
the Mayor, do it ? 


XXXIII.—THE VANITY OF HUMAN F^RIDE. 

1. Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 

Man passes from life to his rest in the grave. 

2. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 

Be scattered around and together be laid; 

And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie. 




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3. The infant, a mother attended and loved, 

The mother, that infant’s affection who proved, 

The husband, that mother and infant who blessed, 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. 

4. The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose 

eye, 

Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; 
And the memory of those who have loved her and 
praised, 

Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 

5. The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, 
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn, 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, 

Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave. 

G. The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, 

The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the 
steep, 

The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, 
Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 

7. The saint, who enjoyed the communion of Heaven, 
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, 

The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 

Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. 

8. So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, 
That withers away to let others succeed; 

So the multitude comes, even those we behold, 

To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

9. For we are the same that our fathers have been; 

We see the same sights that our fathers have seen; 


FIFTH READER. 


95 


We drink the same stream, and we view the same 
snn, 

And run the same course that our fathers have run. 

10. The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would 

think; 

From the death that we shrink from, our fathers 
would shrink; 

To the life that we cling to, they also would cling; 
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing. 

11. They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; 

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; 
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will 

come; 

They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

12. They died—ah! they died—and we things that are. 

now, 

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, 

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage- 
road. 

13. Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 

We mingle together in sunshine and rain; 

And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 

14. ’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud— 
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

William Knox. 


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FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation. —I. This piece was the favorite of Abraham Lincoln. 
Compare it with Psalms XC. and CIII. 

II. Tri'-umphs, e-rased', sggp'-ter (-tr), nri'-ter, p&a§'-ant (pez'-), 
climbed (klimd), succeed', shrink, haugh'-ty (haw'-), tran'-sient (-shent), 
draught (draft), shroud. 

III. Make a list from the above lesson of ten action-words, and before 
each write the name-word of the object of which the action is told. 

IV. Mortal, meteor, moulder, multitude, scorned, abode, despondency, 
surge, bier. 

V. Explain the force of the similes in the 1st and 2d stanzas. Make a 
list of the objects mentioned in the piece: (1.) That “have entered their 
dwellings of rest; ” (2.) That are “ erased from the minds of the living ”; 
(3.) That are “lost in the grave”; (4.) That have “faded like the grass.” 
Make a list of the expressions used by the poet to indicate death (those 
already mentioned above, and “ mingled their bones in the dust,” etc.). 


XXXIV.—FROZEN WORDS. 

1. We were separated by a storm in the latitude of 
73° N., insomuch that only the ship which I was in, with 
a Dutch and a French vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova 
Zembla. We landed, in order to refit our vessels and 
store ourselves with provisions. The crew of each vessel 
made themselves a cabin of turf and wood, at some dis¬ 
tance from each other, to fence themselves against the 
inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond 
imagination. 

2. We soon observed that, in talking to one an¬ 
other, we lost several of our words, and could not hear 
one another at above two yards’ distance, and that, too, 
when we sat very near the fire. After much perplexity, 
I found that our words froze in the air, before they 
could reach the ears of the person to whom they were 
spoken. 



FIFTH READER. 


97 


3. I was soon confirmed in tliis conjecture, when, 
upon the increase of the cold, the whole company grew 
dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was sensible, as we 
afterward found, that he spoke as well as ever; but the 
sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and 
lost. It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding 
and gaping at one another, every man talking, and no man 
heard. One might observe a seaman who could hail a 
ship at a league distance, beckoning with his hands, 
straining with his lungs, and tearing his throat, but all 
in vain. 

4. We continued here three weeks in this dismal 
plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air about 
us began to thaw. Our cabin was immediately filled with 
a dry, clattering sound, which I afterward found to be 
the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, 
and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I im¬ 
puted to the letter s, that occurs so frequently in the 
English tongue. 

5. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by 
my ear; for those, being of a soft and gentle substance, 
immediately liquefied in the warm wind that blew across 
our cabin. These were soon followed by syllables and 
short words, and at length by entire sentences, that melted 
sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed; so 
that we now heard everything that had been spoken 
during the whole three weeks that we had been silent, if 
I ihay use that expression. 

6. It was now very early in the morning; and yet, to 
my surprise, I heard somebody say, “ Sir John, it is mid¬ 
night, and time for the ship’s crew to go to bed.” This 
I knew to be the pilot’s voice; and, upon recollecting 
myself, I concluded that he had spoken these words to 

5 


98 


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me some days before, though I could not hear them before 
the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how 
the whole crew was amazed to hear every man talking, 
and see no man opening his mouth. 

7. In the midst of this great surprise we were all in, 
we heard a volley of oaths and curses, lasting for a long 
while, and uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew 
belonged to the boatswain, who was a very choleric fel¬ 
low, and had taken his opportunity of cursing and swear¬ 
ing at me when he thought I could not hear him; for I 
had several times given him the strappado on that ac¬ 
count, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his pious 
soliloquies when I got him on shipboard. 

8. I must not omit the names of several beauties in 
Mapping, which w^ere heard every now and then in the 
midst of a long sigh that accompanied them: as, “ Dear 
Kate ! ” “ Pretty Mrs. Peggy ! ” This betrayed several 
things which had been concealed till that time, and 
furnished us with a great deal of mirth in our return^to 
England. 

9. When this confusion of voices was pretty well over, 
though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as fearing I 
should not be heard, I proposed a visit to the Dutch 
cabin, which lay about a mile farther up into the country. 
My crew were extremely rejoiced to find they had again 
recovered their hearing, though every man uttered his 
voice with the same apprehensions that I had done. 

10. At about half a mile’s distance from our cabin we 
heard the groanings of a bear, which at first startled us; 
but, upon inquiry, we were informed by some of our 
company that he was dead, and now lay in salt, having 
been killed upon that very spot about a fortnight before, 


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99 


in the time of the frost. Not far from the same place, 
we were entertained likewise with some posthumous 
snarls and harkings of a fox. 

Joseph Addison. 


For Preparation. — I. Compare the style of description in this piece, 
and its quaint humor, with “ Robinson Crusoe ” and Swift’s “ Gulliver.” For 
another fictitious account of words freezing in the air, read Baron Miinch- 
hausen’s “ Travels ” (published after this piece of Addison). Find, on the 
map of Europe, Nova Zembla. Where is Wapping? (On the Thames, a 
suburb of London.) 

II. Sep'-a-rat-ed, lat'-i-tude, pro-vi§'-ion§ (-vfch'unj), w&ath'-er, 
gap'-ing, league (leg), strain'-ing, di§'-mal, thaw, syl'-la-ble, -ehbl'- 
er-i«, boat'-swain (bo'en), -eon-gealed', in-qulr'-y. 

III. Tell the different meanings occasioned by changing the position of 
“ only ” in the sentence, “ Insomuch that only the ship which I was in got 
safe to land ” (placing “ only ” after the ; after ship ; after which ; after in). 

IV. Cabin, inclemencies, observed, perplexity, confirmed, conjecture, 
spectacle, consonants, imputed, liquefied, congealed, during, uttered, oppor¬ 
tunity, strappado, soliloquies, apprehensions, groanings, posthumous. 

V. Do you think it possible for words to freeze in the air ? Give your 
reasons. The newly-discovered instrument called the “Phonograph” seems 
to have realized the possibility of preserving and reproducing sounds. The 
progress of invention has in this instance even surpassed fiction. “ Nod¬ 
ding and gaping ” (i. e., making gestures with the head, and moving the 
mouth as one does in talking to anybody). “ Letter $, in the English 
tongue.” (The English language has been called the “ hissing language ” 
for its many s-sounds.) “ For these his pious soliloquies ”—note the irony. 


XXXV.—WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE? 

1. What constitutes a state ? 

Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, 
Thick wall or moated gate; 

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned ; 

Not bays and broad-arm ports, 

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; 





lOO 


FIFTH READER. 


2. Not starred and spangled courts, 

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No ! Men —high-minded men — 

With powers as far above dull brutes endued 
In forest, brake, or den, 

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

3. Men, who their duties know, 

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain; 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain. 

These constitute a state; 

And sovereign law, that state’s collected will, 

O’er thrones and globes elate 
Sits empress : crowning good, repressing ill. 

4. Smit by her sacred frown, 

The fiend discretion like a vapor sinks ; 

And e’en the all-dazzling crown 
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 

Such was this heaven-loved isle; 

Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore! 

5. No more shall Freedom smile ? 

Shall Britons languish and be men no more ? 

Since all must life resign, 

Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 
’Tis folly to decline, 

And steal inglorious to the silent grave. 

Sir William Jones. 


For Preparation. —I. Sir William Jones is most noted for his essays 
on East Indian literature and customs, and for his translations. His “ Sa- 
koontala,” “ Laws of Manu,” “ Ilitopadesa,” and other translations, made 
accessible to the English reader some of the finest gems of oriental litera¬ 
ture. Lesbos, famous for its musicians and poets in ancient times. 



FIFTH READER. 


lOl 


II. Sov'-er-eign (suv'er-in), laugh'-ing (laf-), -courts, main-tain'. 

III. Make a list of name-words in the above piece expressing more than 
one object; expressing possession. Of describing-words that express com¬ 
parison between two objects. 

IY. Constitutes, battlements, labored mound, moated, spired, turrets, 
navies, endued, excel, tyrant, elate, repressing, smit, sacred, isle, languish, 
resign, decorate, decline, wafts, discretion. 

Y. What is the effect of putting questions that you intend to answer 
yourself ? (“ What constitutes a state ? ”) (It has a rhetorical effect—the 

hearer or reader, being aroused by the question aimed at him, fastens 
his attention on the point you desire to have him consider, and then he is 
more interested in the explanation that you have to offer.) “ With spires 
and turrets crowned ” (i. e., crowning the cities) ; “ spangled courts ” (i. e., 
the lords and ladies at court wearing decorations of stars and jewels). 
“ Wafts perfume to pride ” (flattery is the perfume). Note the passage, 
“ But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain ”; (dare) “ prevent 
the long-aimed blow,” etc., and (dare) “ crush,” etc. “ Sovereign law, that 
state’s collected will ” (the law of a state is made and expressed in accord¬ 
ance with the forms which the collective power of the people has ordained; 
so sovereign law is the will of the collected people). “ The fiend discre¬ 
tion ” (it not a matter of policy, or discretion, but of collected power, that 
expresses its will in the sovereign law). 


XXXVI.—THE EFFECT OF PAUL’S PREACHING AT 

EPHESUS. 

1. And the same time there arose no small stir about 
that way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a sil¬ 
versmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought 
no small gain unto the craftsmen; whom he called to¬ 
gether with the workmen of like occupation, and said, 

2. Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our 
wealth. Moreover, ye see and hear, that not alone at 
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath 
persuaded and turned away much people, saying that 
they be no gods which are made with hands; 



1 02 


FIFTH READER. 


3. So that not only this our craft is in danger to be 
set at naught; but also that the temple of the great god¬ 
dess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence 
should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world wor¬ 
shiped. 

4. And when they heard these sayings, they were full 
of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians! And the whole city was filled with confusion: 
and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Mace¬ 
donia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one 
accord into the theatre. 

5. And when Paul would have entered in unto the 
people, the disciples suffered him not. And certain of 
the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, 
desiring him that he would not adventure himself into 
the theatre. 

6. Some therefore cried one thing, and some an¬ 
other : for the assembly was confused; and the more 
part knew not wherefore they were come together. And 
they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews 
putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with 
the hand, and would have made his defense unto the 
people. 

7. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with 
one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great 
is Diana of the Ephesians! And when the town-clerk 
had appeased the people, he said, 

8. Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that know- 
eth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshiper 
of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell 
down from Jupiter ? 


FIFTH READER. 


103 


0. Seeing, then, that these things cannot be spoken 
against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. 
For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither 
robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your god¬ 
dess. 

10. Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which 
are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is 
open, and there are deputies: let them implead one an¬ 
other. 

11. But if ye inquire anything concerning other mat¬ 
ters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. For we 
are in danger to be called in question for this day’s up¬ 
roar, there being no cause whereby we may give an ac¬ 
count of this concourse. And when he had thus spoken, 
he dismissed the assembly. 


For Preparation. —I. From Acts xix. 23-41. Dl-a'-na was worshiped 
as the chief divinity in Asia Minor. 

II. Wealth, the'-a-tre, -erafts'-men, more-o'-ver, naught (nawt), 
Ga'-ius, Ar-is-tar'-ehus, ad-vgnt'-ure, de-f&nse', hp'-roar. 

III. Note in the language of the Bible, which is that of English two 
hundred and fifty years ago, the use of which where we should use that or 
who (e. g., no gods which are made with hands); the use of there ; of “ a 
certain ” ; of unto for to; be for is or are; more for greater (“ more part ”). 

IV. Shrines, occupation, craftsmen, persuaded, “set at naught,” de¬ 
spised, magnificence, confusion, disciples, suffered, defense, appeased, image, 
deputies, concourse, implead one another. 

V. “By this craft we have our wealth,” “our craft is in danger.” 
(These expressions contain the keys to much of the performance of human 
nature in all ages of the world. The shrewd policy of the town-clerk in 
appeasing and dispersing the mob is noteworthy. But his hint in regard to 
the law and to the danger of a judicial inquiry into that “day’s uproar” 
was very effective. Ephesus was at this time under Roman power, which 
extended its laws over all, and allowed the accused to “ implead ” on equal 
terms with his accuser.) 



104 


FIFTH READER. 


XXXVII.—THE CORONACH. 

1. What woful accents load the gale ? 

The funeral yell, the female wail!— 

A gallant hunter’s sport is o’er, 

A valiant warrior fights no more. 

Who, in the battle or the chase, 

At Roderick’s side shall fill his place ? 

2. Within the hall, where torches’ ray 
Supplied the excluded beams of day, 

Lies Duncan on his lowly bier, 

And o’er him streams his widow’s tear. 
His stripling son stands mournful by, 

Ilis youngest weeps, but knows not why ; 
The village maids and matrons round 
The dismal coronach resound. 

COEONACH. 

3. He is gone on the mountain, 

He is lost to the forest, 

Like a summer-dried fountain, 

When our need was the sorest. 

The font, reappearing, 

From the raindrops shall borrow, 

But to us comes no cheering, 

To Duncan no morrow! 

4. The hand of the reaper 

Takes the ears that are hoary, 

But the voice of the weeper 
Wails manhood in glory ; 

The autumn winds rushing 
Waft the leaves that are searest, 


FIFTH READER. 


105 


But our flower was in flushing 
When blighting was nearest. 

5. Fleet foot on the correi, 

Sage counsel in cumber, 

Bed hand in the foray, 

How sound is thy slumber! 

Like the dew on the mountain, 

Like the foam on the river, 

Like the bubble on the fountain, 

Thou art gone—and forever! 

Walter Scott. 


For Preparation. —I. From the “Lady of the Lake,” Canto III., The 
Gathering. Roderick Dhu summons his clansmen. He sends the fiery 
cross through the glens and moors as the signal for assembling upon Lanric 
Mead, where they waylay the huntsman who lost his gallant gray steed in 
the chase (Lessons XX. and XXII. of the Fourth Reader), on his return 
from the visit to the Lady of the Lake. The bearer of the fiery cross meets 
a sad assemblage singing the coronach, or funeral-song, over the bier of one 
of the warriors of his clan. 

II. Wo'-ful, fu'-ner-al, v&l'-iant (-yant), war'-rior (wor'yur), mourn'- 
ful, c6r'-rei. 

III. “ Torches’ ray ”—one torch, or more ? “ Searest,” “ nearest ”— 

comparison between two or more objects? 

IY. Accents, wail, gallant, bier, searest, blighting, foray, stripling, font, 
hoary, “ in flushing,” “ red hand.” 

Y. “ Fleet foot on the correi ” (i. e., on the hollow side of the hill where 
the game lies). What similes are used to describe the loss the clan has met 
with ? “ Sage counsel in cumber ” (i. e., in trouble). What rank had the 

deceased in his clan (line 6) ? In what respect is a summer-dried fountain 
more to be dreaded than any other ? Do the words “ need was the sorest ” 
seem to imply that the people were aware of the approaching war ? 





106 


FIFTH READER. 


XXXVIII.—HOW TO RENDER SAD IDEAS, 

Ideas represented by sucli words as pathetic, pensive, 
sorrowful, grievous, pitiful, painful, distressful, lament¬ 
able, etc., are included under this head. 

The “ semitone ” is the most characteristic element in 
the expression of pathos in reading, as it is in music. 

The “ moderate slide,” which expresses matter-of-fact 
ideas, when shortened by a “ semitone ,” expresses pathet¬ 
ic ideas (see first and second examples below); and the 
“ long slide,” which expresses earnest ideas, when short¬ 
ened by a semitone , expresses earnest pathos, or manly and 
womanly sorrow (see third and fourth examples below). 

As there is something painful in this sad spirit, the 
“ stress ” is more or less “ abrupt ,” and on the last part 
of the emphatic syllable (often called “ vanishing stress ”). 
The “force” is “ softer ” than that of matter-of-fact or 
earnest ideas, and the “ time is slower.” 

EXAMPLES. 


“ If you’re waking, call me early—call me early, mother 
dear, 

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad Hew Year; 

It is the last Hew Year that I shall ever see— 

Then you may lay me Tow i’ the mould, and think no 
more of me. 

“ To-night I saw the sun set; he set, and left behind 

The good old year—the dear old time—and all my 
peace of mind; 

And the Hew Year’s coming up, mother, but I shall 
never see 

The May upon the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. 


FIFTH READER. 


107 


“ I have been wild and wayward, but ye’ll forgive me 
now; 

You’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and 
brow ? 

Kay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild; 

You shall not fret for me, mother; you have another 
child. 

“ If I can, I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting- 
place ; 

Though you’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon 
your face; 

Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what 
you say, 

And be often and often with you, w T hen you think I’m 
far away.” 

(From “ New - Year's Eve ” by Tennyson.) 


“ Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; 

And she, kissing back, could not know 
That my kiss was given to her sister, 

Folded close under deepening snow.” 

(From “ The First Snow-Fallby James R. Lowell.) 

III. 

“ Dead !—one of them shot by the sea in the East, 

And one of them shot in the West by the sea; 
Dead !—both my boys ! When you sit at the feast, 
And are wanting a great song for Italy free, 

Let none look at me ! ” 

(From “ Mother and Poetby Mrs. Broicning.) 

The following example requires the “longer minor 
slides,” with “ larger volume ” and “ louder force” and 


108 


FIFTH READER. 


more marked u vanishing stress ” (abruptness on tbe last 
part of the emphatic syllables) : 


Cassius —Come, Antony, and young Octavius—come! 
Kevenge yourselves alone on Cassius, 

For Cassius is aweary of the world : 

Hated by one he loves ; brav’d by his brother ; 
Check’d like a bondman ; all his faults observ’d, 

Set in a note-book, learn’d and conn’d by rote, 

To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger, 

And here my naked breast; within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus’ mine, richer than gold : 

If that thou beest a Homan, take it forth. 

I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart: 

Strike, as thou didst at Caesar ; for I know, 

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov’dst him better 
Than ever thou lov’dst Cassius. 

{From “ The Quarrel Scene ” in “ Julius Ccesarby Shakespeare.) 


XXXIX—THE PAUPER’S DEATH-BED. 

1. Tread softly—bow the head— 

In reverent silence bow ! 

No passing bell doth toll, 

Yet an immortal soul 
Is passing now. 

2. Stranger, however great, 

With lowly reverence bow; 
There’s one in that poor shed— 

One by that paltry bed— 

Greater than thou. 



FIFTH READER. 


109 


3. Beneath that beggar’s roof, 

Lo! Death doth keep his state. 

Enter—no crowds attend ; 

Enter—no guards defend 
This palace gate. 

4. That pavement, damp and cold, 

No smiling courtiers tread; 

One silent woman stands, 

Lifting with meagre hands 
A dying head. 

5. No mingling voices sound— 

An infant wail alone; 

A sob suppressed—again 
That short, deep gasp, and then 
The parting groan. 

6. O change! O wondrous change! 

Burst are the prison-bars ! 

This moment there so low, 

So agonized, and now 
Beyond the stars! 

7. O change—stupendous change! 

There lies the soulless clod; 

The sun eternal breaks, 

The new immortal wakes— 

Wakes with his God! 

Caroline B. Southey. 

For Preparation. —I. Paupers live partly or wholly upon eharity. In 
this case it would seem that he lived partly upon charity; for, though called 
a “ beggar,” it is his “ roof,” and he would seem to have a family. (“ One 
silent woman ” and an “ infant wail.”) Kinship of this author to the author 
of “ Blenheim ” and “ Lodore ” ? 



1 io 


FIFTH READER. 


IT. Si'-len<?e, toll, -eourt'-ier, mea'-gre (me'gur), soft'-ly, beg'-gar’§ 
roof, pal'-age, gate, dy'-ing. 

III. In the above piece make a list of the words and phrases that tell 
the manner of the actions, and opposite each write the action-words (e. g., 
softly —tread ; in reverent silence —bow). 

IV. Reverent, paltry, wail, stupendous. 

V. “ Passing bell ” (was rung while the person was dying, to obtain 
prayers for the departing soul; the bell tolled while the funeral procession 
moves is also called the passing bell). “ One greater than thou ” (Death 
personified). “ This moment,” etc. (6) (lying there on that couch so lowly, 
and in such agony just now, but even now beyond the stars). What is 
meant by the “ sun eternal ” ? 


XL—MRS. CAUDLE URGING THE NEED OF SPRING 

CLOTHING. 

1. If there’s anything in the world I hate—and you 
know it—it is asking you for money. I am sure, for 
myself, I’d rather go without a thing a thousand times— 
and I do, the more shame for you to let me ! 

2. “ What do I want now ? ” As if you didn’t know? 
I’m sure, if I’d any money of my own, I’d never ask you 
for a farthing—never! It’s painful to me, gracious 
knows! 

3. What do you say ? “ If it’s painful, why so often 

do it ? ” I suppose you call that a joke—one of your 
club-jokes. As I say, I only wish I’d any money of my 
own. If there is anything that humbles a poor woman, 
it is coming to a man’s pocket for every farthing. It’s 
dreadful! 

4. Now, Caudle, you hear me, for it isn’t often I 
speak. Pray, do you know what month it is ? And did 
you see how the children looked at church to-day ?—like 
nobody else’s children! 



FIFTH READER. 


111 


5. “ What was the matter with them ? ” Oh, Caudle! 
how can you ask? Weren’t they all in their thick meri- 
noes and beaver bonnets ? 

6. What do you say ? “ What of it ? ” What! You’ll 
tell me that you didn’t see how the Briggs girls in their 
new chips turned their noses up at ’em? And you 
didn’t see how the Browns looked at the Smiths, and 
then at our poor girls, as much as to say, “Poor creat¬ 
ures ! what figures for the first of May! ” 

7. “You didn’t see it?” The more shame for you! 
I’m sure those Briggs girls—the little minxes!—put me 
into such a pucker, I could have pulled their ears for ’em 
over the pew. 

8. What do you say? “I ought to be ashamed to 
own it?” Now, Caudle, it’s no use talking; those 
children shall not cross over the threshold next Sunday, 
if they haven’t things for the summer. Now mind—they 
slia’n’t; and there’s an end of it! 

9. “Pm always wanting money for clothes?” How 
can you say that ? I’m sure there are no children in the 
world that cost their father so little; but that’s it—the 
less a poor woman does upon, the less she may. 

10. Now, Caudle, dear! What a man you are! I 
know you will give me the money, because, after all, I 
think you love your children, and like to see ’em well- 
dressed. It’s only natural that a father should. 

11. “ How much money do I want ? ” Let me see, 
love. There’s Caroline, and Jane, and Susan, aud Mary 
Anne, and— 

12. What do you say ? “I needn’t count ’em ! You 
know how many there are!” That’s just the way you 
take me up! 


1 12 


FIFTH READER. 


13. "Well, how much money will it take? Let me 
see—I’ll tell you in a minute. You always love to see 
the dear things look like new pins. I know that, Caudle; 
and though I say it—bless their little hearts!—they do 
credit to you, Caudle. 

14. “ How much ? ” Now don’t be in a hurry ! Well, 
I think, with good pinching—and you know, Caudle, 
there’s never a wife who can pinch closer than I can—I 
think, with pinching, I can do with twenty pounds. 

15. What did you say ? “ Twenty fiddle-sticks? ” 

16. What! “You won’t give half the money!” 
Yery well, Mr. Caudle; I don’t care. Let the children go 
in rags; let them stop from church, and grow up like 
heathens and cannibals; and then you’ll save your money, 
and, I suppose, be satisfied. 

17. What do you say ? “ Ten pounds enough ? ” Yes, 
just like you men; you think things cost nothing for 
women; but you don’t care how much you lay out upon 
yourselves. 

18. “ They only want frocks and bonnets ? ” How 
do you know what they want ? How should a man know 
anything at all about it ? And you won’t give more than 
ten pounds? Yery well. Then you may go shopping 
with it yourself, and see what yov?ll make of it! I’ll 
have none of your ten pounds, I can tell you—no, sir ! 

19. No; you’ve no cause to say that. I don’t want to 
dress the children up like countesses! You often throw 
that in my teeth, you do; but you know it’s false, Caudle; 
you know it! I only wish to give ’em proper notions of 
themselves ; and what, indeed, can the poor things think, 
when they see the Briggses, the Browns, and the Smiths 
*—and their father don’t make the money you do, Caudle 


FIFTH READER. 


113 


—when they see them as fine as tulips ? Why, they must 
think themselves nobody. However, the twenty pounds 
I will have, if I’ve any, or not a farthing. 

20. Ho, sir—no! I don’t want to dress up the chil¬ 
dren like peacocks and parrots ! I only want to make 
’em respectable. 

21. What do you say ? “ You’ll give me fifteen 

pounds?” Ho, Caudle—no! Hot a penny will I take 
under twenty. If 1 did, it would seem as if I wanted to 
waste your money ; and I’m sure, when I come to think 
of it, twenty pounds will hardly do! 

Douglas William Jerrold. 


For Preparation. — I. From “Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures” (first pub¬ 
lished in Punch, the greatest of humorous periodicals. These lectures were 
published in a book form in 1846). This piece is well adapted for a drill in 
the proper use of emphasis and inflection; each pupil, however, should read 
only a very short passage. 

II. Me-ri'-noe§ (-re'-), bea'-ver, f ig'-ure§, minx'-e§, mm'-ute (-it) (and 
mi-nute / ), par'-rots. 

III. Briggses, Browns, Smiths. (Names of persons do not usually take the 
form denoting many; it is used here to denote the members of the family.) 

IY. Farthing, threshold, cannibals, pound, club-jokes, shopping, count¬ 
esses. 

Y. In this dialogue only one person is reported, and we have to infer 
what the other person says from the nature of the retort and from the words 
quoted; as, for example, “ What do I want now ? ” is quoted or repeated 
from the response of the husband, who had said, “ Whq,t do you want now ? ” 
What is the effect of keeping back one of the persons in the dialogue, and 
letting him appear only as reflected in the retorts of the other ? (Does it not 
assist greatly in painting the character of the petulant scold, whose speech is 
torrent-like, and does not give an opportunity for the other to make reply 
except in the briefest rejoinders? There is another use of this style in 
some of the poems of Tennyson, and most frequently in those of Robert 
Browning, and in those of our own Bret Harte. A certain subtlety is added 
by it, which in some cases makes the poems very difficult to understand. 
Such poems are problems, in which you have given the effect of the one 



1 14 


FIFTH READER. 


answer on the other, from which to calculate what that answer was; in case 
the suppressed answer was a long one, the difficulty of the problem is great). 
In the above piece, number the rejoinders of Mrs. Caudle, and write out in 
full the remarks you suppose Mr. Caudle to throw in. Point out the collo¬ 
quial expressions (vulgarisms): “ Gracious knows,” “ chips,” “ little minxes,” 
“such a pucker,” “over’em,” etc. Note redundances (where more words 
are used than are necessary for the sense, as in “ descend down ”); e. g., 
“ cross over the threshold ”; these are common with uneducated people, 
who do not realize two or more meanings in a word, but add separate words 
to express all of the meanings but one ; “ cross ” means to go over , but Mrs. 
Caudle takes it in the sense of go. Explain omissions (called “ ellipses ”) in 
“ the less a poor woman does upon, the less she may.” 


XLI.—UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 

1. Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 

And tune his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird’s throat— 

Come hither, come hither, come hither ! 

Here shall he see 
Ho enemy 

But winter and rough weather. 

2. Who doth ambition shun 
And loves to live i’ the sun, 

Seeking the food he eats 

And pleased with what he gets— 

Come hither, come hither, come hither! 

Here shall he see 
Ho enemy 

But winter and rough weather. 

_ William Shakespeare. 


For Preparation. —I. In the forest of Arden (which Byron identifies 
with the forest of Soignies, near Waterloo), collect a number of people 
driven from the tyrannical French Court by various causes. This little 




FIFTH READER. 


115 


song reflects the tone of mind (feeling of relief and of restfulness, and quiet 
even to tediousness) of these refugees—just as a lake reflects the hills that 
surround it. (See remarks on Poe’s Haunted Palace.) From you Like It. 

II. Rohgh (ruf), hith'-er, wSath'-er, am-bi'-tion (-bish'un), bn'-e-my, 
pleaged. 

III. Mark the feet and accented syllables in the above piece. Explain 
V the sun. 

IV. “ Greenwood tree,” “ tune his merry note.” 

V. In the country—away from society and its complications of love and 

hate, of business relations and intrigues—the city-born-and-bred find op¬ 
portunity of rest and repose. “ Here shall he see no enemy,” etc., repeated 
(called “ a refrain ”). “ Seeking the food ” (i. e., having to hunt for it). 


XLII.—MEXICO AS FIRST SEEN BY THE SPANIARDS. 

1. The troops, refreshed by a night’s rest, succeeded, 
early on the following day, in gaining the crest of the 
sierra of Ahualco, which stretches like a curtain between 
the two great mountains on the north and south. Their 
progress was now comparatively easy, and they marched 
forward with a buoyant step, as they felt they were tread¬ 
ing the soil of Montezuma. 

2. They had not advanced far, when, turning an an¬ 
gle of the sierra, they suddenly came on a view which 
more than compensated the toils of the preceding day. 
It was that of the valley of Mexico (or Tenoehtitlan, as 
more commonly called by the natives), which, with its 
picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated 
plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out 
like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them. 

3. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper 
regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring 



116 


FIFTH READER. 


and a distinctness of outline which seem to annihilate 
the distance. Stretching far away at their feet were seen 
noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar; and beyond, 
yellow fields of maize, and the towering maguey, inter¬ 
mingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for flow¬ 
ers, in such demand for their religious festivals, were 
even more abundant in this populous valley than in other 
parts of Anahuac. 

4. In the centre of the great basin were beheld the 
lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its sur¬ 
face than at present; their borders thickly studded with 
towns and hamlets; and, in the midst, like some Indian 
empress with her coronal of pearls, the fair city of Mex¬ 
ico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, repos¬ 
ing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters — the far- 
famed “ Venice of the Aztecs.” 

5. High above all arose the royal hill of Chapultepec 
(the residence of the Mexican monarchs), crowned with 
the same grove of gigantic cypresses which at this day 
fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance, 
beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by 
the intervening foliage, was seen (a shining speck) the 
rival capital Tezcuco; and still farther on, the dark belt 
of porphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich setting 
which Nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels. 

6. Such was the beautiful vision which broke on the 
eyes of the conquerors; and even now, when so sad a 
change has come over the scene—when the stately forests 
have been laid low, and the soil, unsheltered from the 
fierce radiance of a tropical sun, is in many places aban¬ 
doned to sterility—when the waters have retired, leaving 
a broad and ghastly margin, white with the incrustation 


FIFTH READER. 


117 


of salts, while the cities and hamlets on their borders have 
mouldered into ruins—even now that desolation broods 
over the landscape, so indestructible are the lines of 
beauty which Nature has traced on its features that no 
traveler, however cold, can gaze on them with any other 
emotions than those of astonishment and rapture. 

7. What, then, must have been the emotions of the 
Spaniards, when, after working their toilsome way into 
the upper air, the cloudy tabernacle parted before their 
eyes, and they beheld these fair scenes in all their pristine 
magnificence and beauty! It was like the spectacle which 
greeted the eyes of Moses from the summit of Pisgah; 
and, in the warm glow of their feelings, they cried out, 
“ It is the promised land ! ” 

William H. Prescott. 


For Preparation. —I. Have you read Prescott’s “ Conquest of Mexico ” ? 
Examine on your map the site of the city of Mexico—situated on a circle 
of table-land hollowed out in the centre. Who was Montezuma ? What is 
the maguey plant ? Where is Anahuac (a-na-wak') ? (the entire table-land of 
central Mexico). What is porphyry ? Find Pisgah, on the map of Palestine. 

II. Ear'-ly (er'-), buoy'-ant, pi-et'-ur-Ssque (-Ssk), g6r'-geous (-jus), 
brill'-ian-cy, pyr'-a-mid, -ebn'-quer-org (konk'er-urs), A-hual'--eo (-wai-), 
Te-noch-tit-lan', Cha-pul-te-pee', Tez-eu'-eo (tsth-). 

III. Every sentence has a subject and predicate—i. e., it names something 
(the subject) of which something is said, and then predicates (asserts, asks, 
or commands) something of it. This distinction is the basis of all gram¬ 
matical definition. In the first three paragraphs of the above piece find the 
subjects and corresponding predicates (e. g., troops—succeeded). 

IV. Crest, sierra, compensated, preceding, cultivated, panorama, rare¬ 
fied, atmosphere, annihilate, maize, studded, hamlets, coronal, intervening, 
foliage, rival, porphyry, devised, sterility, margin, incrustation, mouldered, 
desolation, indestructible, emotions, rapture, tabernacle, pristine, spectacles, 
summit. 

V. Why did they feel buoyant in spirits at treading the soil of Monte¬ 
zuma ? (They approached the object of their long and dangerous journey.) 
Explain the simile , “ like a rich setting,” etc. 



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FIFTH READER. 


XLIII.— MARMION AND DOUGLAS. 

1. Not far advanced was morning day, 

When Marmion did his troops array, 

To Surrey’s camp to ride; 

He had safe conduct for his band, 

Beneath the royal seal and hand, 

And Douglas gave a guide. 

2. The ancient earl, with stately grace, 

Would Clara on her palfrey place, 

And whispered in an undertone, 

“ Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown.” 

The train from out the castle drew, 

But Marmion stopped to hid adieu : 

3. “ Though something I might plain,” he said, 

“ Of cold respect to stranger guest, 

Sent hither by your king’s behest, 
While in Tantallon’s towers I stayed; 

Part we in friendship from your land, 
And, noble earl, receive my hand.” 

4. But Douglas round him drew his cloak, 
Folded his arms, and thus he spoke: 

“ My manors, halls, and bowers, shall still 
Be open at my sovereign’s will, 

To each one whom he lists, howe’er 
Unmeet to be the owner’s peer. 

My castles are my king’s alone, 

From turret to foundation-stone : 

The hand of Douglas is his own, 

And never shall, in friendly grasp, 

The hand of such as Marmion clasp.” 


FIFTH READER. 


1 


5. Burned Marmion’s swarthy cheek like fire, 
And shook his very frame for ire; 

And “ This to me,” he said, 

“ An’t were not for thy hoary beard 
Such hand as Marmion’s had not spared 
To cleave the Douglas’ head! 

6. “ And, first, I tell thee, haughty peer, 

He, who does England’s message here, 
Although the meanest in her state, 

May well, proud Angus, be thy mate; 

And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride— 

Here in thy hold, thy vassals near 
(Hay, never look upon your lord, 

And lay your hand upon your sword), 

I tell thee thou’rt defied! 

And if thou saidst I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 

Lowland or highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied! ” 

7. On the earl’s cheek the flush of rage 
O’ercame the ashen hue of age; 

Fierce he broke forth: “ And dar’st thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 

The Douglas in his hall ? 

And hop’st thou hence unscathed to go ?— 

Ho! by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! 

8. “ Up drawbridge, grooms—what, warder, ho! 

Let the portcullis fall! ”— 

Lord Marmion turned—well was his need— 
And dashed the rowels in his steed 


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Like arrow through the archway sprung; 

The ponderous grate behind him rung; 

To pass there was such scanty room, 

The bars, descending, grazed his plume. 

9. The steed along the drawbridge flies, 

Just as it trembles on the rise; 

Not lighter does-the swallow skim 
Along the smooth lake’s level brim; 

And when Lord Marmion reached his band, 

He halts, and turns with clenched hand, 

And shout of loud defiance pours, 

And shook his gauntlet at the towers. 

10. “ Horse! horse! ” the Douglas cried, “ and chase! ” 
But soon he reined his fury’s pace. 

“ A royal messenger he came, 

Though most unworthy of the name— 

A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed ! 

Did ever knight so foul a deed ? 

At first, in heart, it liked me ill, 

When the king praised his clerkly skill. 

Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine, 

Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line.” 

Walter Scott. 


For Preparation. —I. Selection from Canto VI. of “ Marmion, a Tale 
of Flodden Field.” Have you read “ Sunset on the Border ” ? (XXVII.) 
The Scotch king, James IV., in 1513, makes an inroad into the north of Eng¬ 
land, capturing four border fortresses and encamping on Flodden, the last 
of the Cheviot hills. There he was defeated and killed by the English under 
the Earl of Surrey. The scene here is laid at Tantallon’s castle, the home 
of the great Earl Douglas (sixth Earl of Angus, called “ Bell the Cat ”), 
three miles from North Berwick. Marmion is an English lord come hither 
as envoy, and now returning to the English camp with Clara, who has been 
entrusted to his charge by the Scotch king. Gawain, the son of Douglas, 
translated Virgil’s “ JEneid ” into Scottish verse in 1513. 



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121 


II. ■Cftn'-du-et, a-dieu/ (-du'), sov'-er-eign (siiv'er-in). 

III. Find subjects and predicates ( see XLII.—note iii.)—(e. g., day — 
advanced , Marmion—did array , he — had } Douglas—gave , etc.). 

IV. Array, palfrey, behest, manors, peer, turret, swarthy, ire, hoary, 
hold, vassals, defied, unscathed, drawbridge, warder, portcullis, rowels, 
“ ponderous grate,” scanty, grazed, “ shook his gauntlet,” forged, “ liked me 
ill.” 

V. “ Let the hawk stoop,” etc. (De Wilton, the lover of Clara, had 
already left for the camp of Surrey, with proofs of Marmion’s perfidy.) 
“ By your king’s behest ” (King James had assigned Marmion to Douglas 
as royal guest). Note (10) the earl’s opinion of learning. 


XLIV.—ASCENT OF MOUNT KTAADN. 

1. While my companions were seeking a suitable spot 
for camping that night, I improved the little daylight 
that was left in climbing the mountain alone. We were 
in a deep and narrow ravine, sloping up to the clouds, at 
an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and hemmed in by 
walls of rock, which were at first covered with low trees, 
then with impenetrable thickets of scraggy birches and 
spruce trees, and with moss, hut at last bare of all vege¬ 
tation but lichens, and almost continually draped in clouds. 

2. Following up the course of the torrent which occu¬ 
pied this—and I mean to lay some emphasis on the word 
up —pulling myself up by the side of perpendicular falls 
of twenty or thirty feet, by the roots of firs and birches, 
and then perhaps walking a level rod or two in the thin 
stream—for it took up the whole road, ascending by huge 
steps, as it were, a giant’s stairway, down which a river 
flowed—I had soon cleared the trees, and paused on the 
successive shelves to look back over the country. 

3. The torrent was from fifteen to thirty feet wide, 
without a tributary, and seemingly not diminishing in 

6 



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breadth as I advanced; but still it came rushing and 
roaring down, with a copious tide, over and amidst masses 
of bare rock, from the very clouds, as though a water¬ 
spout had just burst over the mountain. 

4. Leaving this at last, I began to work my way, 
scarcely less arduous than Satan’s anciently through chaos, 
up the nearest though not the highest peak. At first 
scrambling on all-fours over the tops of ancient black 
spruce-trees, old as the flood, from two to ten or twelve 
feet in height, their tops flat and spreading, and their 
foliage blue and nipped with cold, as if for centuries they 
had ceased growing upward against the bleak sky, the 
solid cold. 

5. I walked some good rods erect upon the tops of 
these trees, which were overgrown with moss and moun¬ 
tain cranberries. It seemed that in the course of time 
they had filled up the intervals between the huge rocks, 
and the cold wind had uniformly leveled all over. Here 
the principle of vegetation was hard put to it. 

6. There was apparently a belt of this kind running 
quite round the mountain, though perhaps nowhere so 
remarkable as here. Once, slumping through, I looked 
down two feet into a dark and cavernous region, and 
saw the stem of a spruce, on whose top I stood as on a 
mass of coarse basket-work, fully nine inches in diameter 
at the ground. These holes were bears’ dens, and the 
bears were even then at home. 

7. This was the sort of garden I made my way over, 
for an eighth of a mile, at the risk, it is true, of treading 
on some of the plants, not seeing any path through it; 
certainly the most treacherous and porous country I ever 
traveled. 


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123 


u Nigh foundered, on he fares, 

Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, 

Half flying.” 

But nothing could exceed the toughness of the twigs; 
not one snapped under my weight, for they had slowly 
grown. 

8. Having stumped, scrambled, rolled, bounced, and 
walked by turns over this scraggy country, I arrived upon 
a side hill, or rather side mountain, where rocks, gray, 
silent rocks, were the flocks and herds that pastured, 
chewing a rocky cud at sunset. They looked at me with 
hard gray eyes, without a bleat or a low. This brought 
me to the skirt of a cloud, and bounded my walk that 
night. But I had already seen that Maine country when 
I turned about, waving, flowing, rippling down below. 

9. When I returned to my companions, they had 
selected a camping-ground on the torrent’s edge, and 
were resting on the ground; one was on the sick-list, 
rolled in a blanket, on a damp shelf of rock. It was a 
savage and dreary scenery enough; so wildly rough, that 
they looked long to find a level and open space for the 
tent. 

10. We could not well camp higher for want of fuel; 
the trees here seemed so evergreen and sappy, that we 
almost doubted if they would acknowledge the influence 
of fire; but fire prevailed at last, and blazed here, too, 
like a good citizen of the world. 

11. Even at this height we met with frequent traces 
of moose as well as of bears. As here was no cedar, we 
made our bed of coarser-feathered spruce; but, at any 
rate, the feathers were plucked from the live tree. It 
was, perhaps, even a more grand and desolate place for a 


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night’s lodging than the summit would have been, being 
in the neighborhood of these wild trees and of the tor¬ 
rent. 

12. Some more aerial and finer-spirited winds rushed 
and roared through the ravine all night, from time to 
time arousing our fire, and dispersing the embers about. 
It was as if we lay in the very nest of a young whirlwind. 
At midnight, one of my bed-fellows, being startled in his 
dreams by the sudden blazing up to its top of a fir-tree, 
whose green boughs were dried by the heat, sprang up 
with a cry from his bed, thinking the world on fire, and 
drew the whole camp after him. 

13. In the morning, after whetting our appetite on 
some raw pork, a wafer of hard bread, and a dipper of 
condensed cloud or w r aterspout, we all together began 
to make our way up the falls which I have described; 
this time choosing the right-hand or highest peak, which 
was not the one I had approached before. 

14. But soon my companions were lost to my sight 
behind the mountain ridge in my rear, which still seemed 
ever retreating before me, and I climbed alone over huge 
rocks, loosely poised, a mile or more, still edging toward 
the clouds; for, though the day was clear elsewhere, the 
summit was concealed by mist. 

15. The mountain seemed a vast aggregation of loose 
rocks, as if some time it had rained rocks, and they lay 
as they fell on the mountain sides, nowhere fairly at rest, 
but leaning on each other, all rocking-stones, with cavi¬ 
ties between, but scarcely any soil or smoother shelf. 

16. They were the raw materials of a planet dropped 
from an unseen quarry, which the vast chemistry of 
Nature would anon work up or work down into the smil- 



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125 


ing and verdant plains and valleys of earth. This was 
an unfinished extremity of the globe; as in lignite we 
see coal in the process of formation. 

IT. At length I entered within the skirts of the cloud, 
which seemed for ever drifting over the summit and yet 
would never be gone, but was generated out of that pure 
air as fast as it flowed away; and when, a quarter of a 
mile further, I reached the summit of the ridge, which 
those who have seen in clearer weather say is about five 
miles long, and contains a thousand acres of table-land, 
I was deep within the hostile ranks of clouds, and all 
objects were obscured by them. 

18. Now the wind would blow me out a yard of clear 
sunlight, wherein I stood; then a gray, dawning light 
was all it could accomplish, the cloud-line ever rising and 
falling with the wind’s intensity. Sometimes it seemed 
as if the summit would be cleared in a few moments, and 
smile in sunshine ; but what was gained on one side was 
lost on another. 

19. It was like sitting in a chimney and waiting for 
the smoke to blow away. It was, in fact, a cloud-factory 
—these were the cloud-works, and the wind turned them 
ofi down from the cool, bare rocks. Occasionally, when 
the windy columns broke in to me, I caught sight of a 
dark, damp crag, to the right or left, the mist driving 
ceaselessly between it and me. 

20. It reminded me of the creations of the old epic 
and dramatic poets, of Atlas, Yulcan, the Cyclops, and 
Prometheus. Such was Caucasus and the rock where 
Prometheus was bound. ^Eschylus had, no doubt, visited 
such scenery as this. It was vast, Titanic, and such as 
man never inhabits. 


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21. Some part of the beholder, even some vital part, 
seems to escape through the loose grating of his ribs as he 
ascends. He is more lone than you can imagine. There 
is less of substantial thought and fair understanding in him 
than in the plains where men inhabit. His reason is dis¬ 
persed and shadowy, more thin and subtile, like the air. 

22. Yast, Titanic, inhuman Nature has got him at 
disadvantage, caught him alone, and pilfers him of some 
of his divine faculty. She does not smile on him as in 
the plains. She seems to say sternly, “ Why came ye here 
before your time ? This ground is not prepared for you. 
Is it not enough that I smile in the valleys ? I have 
never made this soil for thy feet, this air for thy breath¬ 
ing, these rocks for thy neighbors. I cannot pity nor 
fondle thee here, but forever relentlessly drive thee hence 
to where I am kind. 

23. “ Why seek me where I have not called you, and 
then complain because you find me but a stepmother? 
Shouldst thou freeze, or starve, or shudder thy life away, 
here is no shrine, nor altar, nor any access to my ear.” 

“ Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy 
With purpose to explore or to disturb 
The secrets of your realm, but .... 

as my way 

Lies through your spacious empire up to light.” 

24. The tops of mountains are among the unfinished 

parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods 
to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on 
our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, 
go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb moun¬ 
tains ; their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never 
visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who 
Climb to the summit of Ktaadn. Henry D. Thoreau. 


FIFTH READER. 


127 


For Preparation.—I. Find, on the map of Maine, Ktaadn (usually 
spelled Ka-tah'-din). Have you read Thoreau’s “ Maine Woods ” ? In the 
first part of that work he treats of Ktaadn. “ Such was Caucasus,” etc. 
(he refers to the description in “ The Prometheus,” a drama of iEschylus). 
“ Pomola ” (Pomona, the goddess of fruit-trees and husbandry ?) 

II. Suit'-a-blo (sut'a-bl), ll'--ehen§ (-kens), trav'-eled (-eld), rough (ruf), 
sub'-tlle, caught (kawt), neigh'-bor§ (na'burz). 

III. In the first three paragraphs make a list of the name-words that are 
subjects, and of the action-words that are predicates, and before each sub¬ 
ject write any describing-words it may have. 

IY. Impenetrable, perpendicular, tributary, diminishing, cavernous, ex¬ 
ceed, consistence, poised, cavities, obscured, epic, Titanic, pilfers, relentless¬ 
ly, shrine. 

Y. “ The principle of vegetation was hard put to it ” (the rocks and 
the cold winds made it hard for vegetation to live and thrive). “ At the risk 
of treading on some of the plants ” (he says this jestingly, carrying out 
the figure of speech). “ This sort of garden” (as if he would take pains in a 
garden not to tread on the vegetables, and here he was walking on the tops 
of the “ plants ”). “ Satan’s arduous way through chaos ” refers to Milton’s 

description: 

“ O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, 

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.” 

The quotation “ Chaos and ancient Night,” etc., is from the same book (2d) 
of the “ Paradise Lost ”; and also the passage, “ Nigh foundered, on he 
fares.” 


XLV.—VIRTUE. 

1. Sweet Day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 

The bridal of the Earth and Sky, 

The Dew shall weep thy fall to-night, 

For thou must die. 

2. Sweet Rose, whose hue, angry and brave, 

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 

Thy root is ever in its grave, 

And thou must die. 



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3. Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, 

A box where sweets compacted lie, 

My music shows you have your closes, 

And all must die. 

4. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 

Like seasoned timber, never gives: 

But though the whole world turns to coal, 

Then chiefly lives. 

_ George Herbert. 


For Preparation.—I. What poems of Herbert have you read besides 
this ? ( See XXV.) Compare it with Collins’s ode, “ How sleep the Brave ? ” 
(XII.), in style and tone. Izaak Walton says, in the “Complete Angler,” 
“ Come, tell me what the holy Herbert says of such days and showers as 
these, and then we will thank God that we enjoy them.” 

II. Gaz'-er, Sv'-er, wh6re (hwSr), seasoned (se'znd). 

III. What style uses thy, thou, art, etc. ? (solemn, or sacred). Why not 
thou and thy for “ you ” and “ your ” (3), when addressing the Spring ? 

IV. Hue, rash, compacted, timber. 

V. Do you think the simile, “ like seasoned timber,” etc., poetic, and in 
harmony with the elevated tone of the 1st and 2d verses? The allusion 
to a “ box of sweets ” elevated, or common ? Is the simile of the timber 
consistent throughout? (i. e., does not seasoned timber burn to coal as 
quickly as the other wood ? or does he refer to live, glowing coals, by 
“chiefly lives”?) The old spelling “angrie” for angry justifies the metre 
of line five, where the accent is on gry of angry. What is the old English 
meaning of “ closes ” ? 


XLVI.— RULES OF BEHAVIOR. 


i. 

1. Every action in company ought to be with some 
sign of respect to those present. 

2. In presence of others, sing not to yourself with a 
humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet. 




FIFTH READER. 


129 


3. Sleep not when others speak ; sit not when others 
stand; speak not when you should hold your peace; walk 
not when others stop. 

4. Turn not your back to others, especially in speak¬ 
ing j jog n °t table or desk on which another reads or 
writes; lean not on any one. 

5. Be no flatterer; neither play with any one that 
delights not to be played with. 

6. Bead no letters, books, or papers, in company; 
but when there is a necessity for doing it, you must ask 
leave. Come not near the books or writings of any one 
so as to read them, unless desired, nor give your opinion 
of them unasked; also, look not nigh when another is 
writing a letter. 

I. When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and 
disturb not the audience. If auy hesitate in his words, 
help him not, nor prompt him, without being desired; 
interrupt him not, nor answer him, till his speech is 
ended. 

8. Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither 
approach to those that speak in private. 

9. Make no show of taking great delight in your vic¬ 
tuals ; feed not with greediness; lean not on the table; 
neither find fault with what you eat. 

10. Let your discourse with men of business be short 
and comprehensive. 

II. In visiting the sick, do not presently play the 
physician, if you be not knowing therein. 

12. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art him¬ 
self professes; it savors of arrogancy. 


130 


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13. Be not immoderate in urging your friend to dis¬ 
cover a secret. 

14. If two contend together, take not the part of 
either unconstrained, and be not obstinate in your own 
opinion ; in things indifferent, be of the major side. 

15. Speak not in an unknown tongue in company, 
but in your own language, and as those of quality do, and 
not as the vulgar; sublime matters treat seriously. 

16. In dispute, be not so desirous to overcome, as [you 
are] to give liberty to each one to deliver his opinion; 
and submit to the judgment of the major part, especially 
if they are judges of the dispute. 

17. Be not angry at table, whatever happens, and if 
you have reason to be so, show it not; put on a cheerful 
countenance, especially if there be strangers, for good 
humor makes one dish of meat a feast. 


n. 

18. When you meet with one of greater quality than 
yourself, stop and retire, especially if it be at a door or 
any strait place, to give way to him to pass. 

19. They that are in dignity, or in office, have in all 
places precedency; but, while they are young, they-ought 
to respect those who are their equals in birth, or other 
qualities, though they have no public charge. 

20. It is. good manners to prefer them, to whom we 
are to speak, before ourselves, especially if they be above 
us, with whom in no sort we ought to begin. 

21. In writing or speaking, give to every person his 
due title, according to his degree and the custom of the 
place. 


FIFTH READER. 


131 


22. Strive not with your superiors in argument, but 
always submit your judgment to others with modesty. 

23. Be not forward, but friendly and courteous; the 
first to salute, hear, and answer; and be not pensive when 
it is time to converse. 

24. When your superiors talk to anybody, hearken 
not, neither speak, nor laugh. 

25. When you speak of God or his attributes, let it 
be seriously, in reverence. Honor and obey your natural 
parents, although they be poor. 


26. In your apparel, be modest, and endeavor to ac¬ 
commodate nature, rather than to procure admiration; 
keep to the fashion of your equals, such as are civil and 
orderly with respect to times and places. 

27. Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about 
you to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, 
if your stockings set neatly, and clothes handsomely. 

28. Think before you speak; pronounce not imper¬ 
fectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly 
and distinctly. 

29. Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be 
careful to keep your promise. 

30. When you deliver a matter, do it without passion, 
and with discretion, however mean the person may be 
you do it to. 

31. Be not tedious in discourse; make not many 
digressions nor repeat often the same manner of dis¬ 
course. 


132 


FIFTH READER. 


32. Use no reproachful language against any one, 
neither curse, nor revile. 

33. Let your countenance be pleasant, but in serious 
matters somewhat grave. 


34. Being to advise or reprehend any one, consider 
whether it ought to be in public or private, presently or 
at some other time, in what terms to do it; and, in re¬ 
proving, show no signs of choler, but do it with sweet¬ 
ness and mildness. 

35. Mock not nor jest at anything of importance; 
break no jests that are sharp-biting; and if you deliver 
anything witty and pleasant, abstain from laughing there¬ 
at yourself. 

36. Associate yourselves w T ith men of good quality, 
if you esteem your own reputation ; for it is better to be 
alone, than in bad company. 

37. Utter not base and frivolous things among 
grave and learned men; nor very difficult questions or 
subjects among the ignorant; nor things hard to be 
believed. 

38. Speak not of doleful things in time of mirth, nor 
at the table; speak not of melancholy things, as death 
and wounds; and if others mention them, change, if you 
can, the discourse. Tell not your dreams but to your 
intimate friends. 

39. Break not a jest where none takes pleasure in 
mirth; laugh not aloud, nor at all without occasion. De¬ 
ride no man’s misfortune, though there seems to be some 
cause. 


FIFTH READER. 


133 


40. Go not thither where you know not whether you 
shall be welcome or not. Give not advice without being 
asked; and when desired, do it briefly. 

41. Treat with men at fit times about business, and 
whisper not in the company of others. 


v. 

42. Be fiot hasty to believe flying reports to the dis¬ 
paragement of any. 

43. Speak not injurious words, neither in jest nor 
earnest; scoff at none, although they give occasion. 

44. Detract not from others, neither be excessive in 
commending. 

45. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the 
truth thereof. In discoursing of things you have 
heard, name not your author always. A secret dis¬ 
cover not. 

46. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of an¬ 
other, though he were your enemy. 

47. When a man does all he can, though it succeeds 
not well, blame not him that did it. 

48. Let your conversation be without malice or 
envy, for it is a sign of tractable and commendable 
nature; and, in all causes of passion, admit reason to 
govern. 

49. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others, 
and ask not how they came. What you speak in secret 
to your friend, deliver not before others. 

George Washington. 


134 


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For Preparation. —I. These maxims were compiled by Washington 
when thirteen years old. His biographer says of him: “ His intercourse 
with men, private and public, in every walk and station, was marked with 
a consistency, a fitness to occasion, a dignity, decorum, condescension, and 
mildness and respect for the claims of others, and a delicate perception of 
the nicer shades of civility, which were not more the dictates of his natural 
good sense and incomparable judgment than the fruits of a long and un¬ 
wearied discipline.” These maxims are not arranged here in the order that 
Washington arranged them, but are classified under the following heads: 
(i.) Those which relate to behavior in company (1 to 17); (n.^ those which re¬ 
late to treatment of superiors in rank, fortune, or age (18 to 25); (hi.) those 
which relate to personal appearance and bearing or demeanor (26 to 33); 
(iv.) those which relate to proper regard for the occasion, or the needs and 
desires of those present (34 to 41); (v.) those which relate to gossip, con¬ 
sideration to be shown toward others—those, in short, which are based on 
the Golden Rule (42 to 49). See “ Manners at the Table ” (CXXVI.). 

II. Wrlt'-ing§ (rit 7 -), qual'-l-ty, en-dSav'-or (-dgv'-), as-so'-ci-ate 
(-shi-), at'-tri-bute, -e5n'-§cienge (-shens), pre-ged'-en-gy. 

III. Name-words are sometimes made out of describing-words. Thus, th 
added to true makes truth (e being dropped), the name of the quality; thus, 
too, length from long ( o becoming e) ; health from hale ; " wealth from well or 
weal; width from wide ; warmth from warm. Can you think of any others ? 

IY. Discourse, reprove, deride, flatterer. There are many words and 
phrases in this piece used in old-fashioned (obsolete or obsolescent) signifi¬ 
cations ; e. g., major side (14), deliver (16), greater quality (rank) (18), strait 
(narrow), dignity (position of influence) (19), etc. 

V. Condense the above rules, if possible, so as to make five general ones. 


XLVII.—MORNING SOUNDS. 

1. But who the melodies of morn can tell ? 

The wild brook babbling down the mountain’s side; 
The lowing herd ; the sbeepfold’s simple bell; 

The pipe of early shepherd, dim descried 
In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide, 

The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; 

The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide ; 




FIFTH READER. 


13S 


The hum of bees ; the linnet’s lay of love ; 

And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. 

2. The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark ; 

Crowned with her pail, the tripping milkmaid sings; 
The whistling ploughman stalks afield ; and hark ! 

Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings; 
Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs; 

Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour; 

The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ; 

Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower; 

And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. 

James Beattie. 


For Preparation. —I. From “ The Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius,” 
Book I., xxxviii. and xxxix. Compare the tone of this piece with any that 
you know of Byron’s that describe Nature (CXVIII.)—the restfulness of this, 
with the unrestfulness of Byron’s. (The soul that is at one with itself—not 
torn asunder by conflicting passions and principles—here looks out upon Na¬ 
ture and finds itself reflected in what it sees.) Do you not think that the 
moods in which we look at Nature generally determine the manner in which 
we describe it ? Find other differences between this piece and correspond¬ 
ing ones from Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier (see, also, X.). 

II. M81'-o-die§, low'-ing, &eh'-o-ing (ek'-), -ehoir (kwir), whis'-tling 
(hwls'Bling), plougli'-man (plou'-) (and plow'-man), whir'-ring. 

III. “ Babbling,” “ lowing ”: many descriptive words are derived from 
action-words by adding ing ( ing denotes action, not predicated, but belonging 
to, and in present time). Make a list of all such words in the lesson ending 
in ing, and opposite each write the action-word from which it is derived. 

IV. Babbling, “dim descried,” pipe, “lone valley,” clamorous, “hol¬ 
low murmur,” “ universal grove,” ponderous, “ drowsy hour,” turtle (dove), 
sequestered, aerial. 

V. Would these morning sounds be heard in a city, or in the country ? 
—in all countries, or only in some particular ones ? Describe accurately the 
location of such a country (e. g., it must be near a mountain, in a country 
where are found shepherds with pipes, and huntsmen with horns ; near the 
ocean ; where milkmaids carry pails on their heads, etc.). 



136 


FIFTH READER. 


XLVIII.—DIALOGUE WITH THE GOUT. 

1. Franklin —Eh ! oh ! eh ! What have I done to 
merit these cruel sufferings ? 

Gout —Many things: you have eat and drunk too 
freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in 
their indolence. 

Franklin —Who is it that accuses me ? 

Gout —It is I, even I, the Gout. 

Framklin —What! my enemy in person ? 

Gout —No ; not your enemy. 

2. Franklin— I repeat it, my enemy ; for you would 
not only torment my body to death, but ruin my good 
name. You reproach me as a glutton and a tippler: now, 
all the world that knows me will allow that I am neither 
one nor the other. 

3. Gout —The world may think as it pleases: it is 
always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its 
friends; but I very well know that the quantity of meat 
and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable de¬ 
gree of exercise, would be too much for another who 
never takes any. 

4. Franklin —I take—eh! oh !—as much exercise— 
eh !—as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary 
state, and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, 
as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether 
my own fault. 

5. Gout —Not a jot. Your rhetoric and your polite¬ 
ness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If 
your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amuse¬ 
ments, your recreations, at least, should be active. You 


FIFTH READER. 


137 


ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that, 
play at something. 

6. But let us examine your course of life. While the 
mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, 
what do you do ? Why, instead of gaining an appetite 
for breakfast by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself 
with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly 
are not worth the reading. 

7. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast: four dishes 
of tea, with cream, one or two buttered toasts, with slices 
of hung beef—which, I fancy, are not things the most 
easily digested. 

8. Immediately afterward, you sit down to write at 
your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on 
business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind 
of bodily exercise. 

9. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, 
to your sedentary condition; but what is your practice 
after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those 
friends with whom you have dined, would be the choice 
of men of sense; yours is, to be fixed down to chess, 
where you are found engaged for two or three hours. 

10. This is your perpetual recreation: the least eligi¬ 
ble of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accel¬ 
erating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it 
requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct in¬ 
ternal secretions. Wrapped in the speculations of this 
wretched game, you destroy your constitution. 

11. What can be expected from such a course of liv¬ 
ing, but a body replete with stagnant humors, ready to 
fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the 


138 


FIFTH READER. 


Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating 
those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them ? 

12. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin ! But amid my instruc¬ 
tions, I had almost forgot to administer my wholesome 
corrections ; so take that twinge—and that! 

FranTdin —Oh! eh! oh! oh! As much instruction 
as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches, but 
pray, madam, a truce with your corrections! 

13 . Gout —No, sir — no! I will not abate a particle of 
what is so much for your good, therefore— 

FramMin —Oh! eh! it is not fair to say I take no 
exercise, when I do very often go out to dine and return 
in my carriage. 

Gout —That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most 
slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a 
carriage suspended on springs. 

14. By observing the degree of heat obtained by dif¬ 
ferent kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the 
quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, 
if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an 
hour’s time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horse¬ 
back, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four 
hours’ round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such 
as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and glad¬ 
ly enter the last inn to warm your feet by a fire. 

15. Flatter yourself then no longer that half an hour’s 
airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. 
Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while 
He has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines in¬ 
finitely more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, 
then, and make a proper use of yours. 


Benjamin Franklin. 


FIFTH READER. 


139 


For Preparation.—I. The gout is an inflammation (or swelling) of the 
parts of the joints to which the ligaments are fastened, and generally attacks 
the great toe first. It is accompanied by paroxysms of pain in the affected 
parts. 

II. Di'-a-16gue (-log), a-e~eu§'-e§, 6n'-e-my, re-proach', com'-plai- 
§ant, s8d'-en-ta-ry, rh&t'-o-ri-e (rSt'-), pam'-phlets (-fists), in-6r'-di-nate, 
bu§'-i-ness (biz'nee), friendg (frendz), per-pet'-ii-al, 61'-i-gi-ble, a-e-$61'- 
er-at-ing, ob-tained', perceived', 1611, serv'-ige-a-ble. 

III. Describing-words are sometimes made by adding lie (able, ible, 
uble) to name or action-words, as forc{e)ible , terr{or)ible , manageable. 
Make a list of twenty that you can think of, and opposite each write the 
meaning that ble gives to the word (e. g., readable— may be read). 

IV. Indolence, complaisant, sedentary, rhetoric, salutary, inordinate, 
converse, perpetual, recreation, eligible, accelerating, internal secretions, 
stagnant humors, commodious. 

V. “ I take—eh! oh! ” (he has twinges of the gout as he begins to 
speak, and has to interrupt his sentence by exclamations of pain). “Your 
rhetoric and politeness” (i. e.,.your persuasive argument and your polite 
words to me). “Accelerating the motion of the fluids” (10) (hastening 
the circulation of the blood and the internal secretions). “ Purifying or dis¬ 
sipating them ” (11) (by exercise or the effort of Nature in the gout, these 
“ stagnant humors ” are supposed to be thrown off). “ A truce” (12) (cessa¬ 
tion of hostilities—short quiet from pain). 


XLIX.—ABSALO M. 

1. The waters slept. Night’s silvery veil hung low 
On Jordan’s bosom, and the eddies curled 
Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still, 
Unbroken beating of the sleeper’s pulse. 

The reeds bent down the stream ; the willow leaves, 
With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide, 

Forgot the lifting winds; and the long stems, 
Whose flowers, the water, like a gentle nurse, 

Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way, 

And leaned, in graceful attitudes, to rest. 



140 


FIFTH READER. 


2. How strikingly tlie course of Nature tells, 

By its light heed of human suffering, 

That it was fashioned for a happier world ! 

3. King David’s limbs were weary. He had fled 
From far Jerusalem; and now he stood, 

With his faint people, for a little rest 

Upon the shore of Jordan. The light wind 
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow 
To its refreshing breath; for he had worn 
The mourner’s covering, and he had not felt 
That he could see his people until now. 

They gathered round him on the fresh green bank, 
And spoke their kindly words; and, as the sun 
Bose up in heaven, he knelt among them there, 

And bowed his head upon his hands to pray. 

4. Oh ! when the heart is full—when bitter thoughts 
Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 

And the poor, common words of courtesy 
Are such a very mockery—how much 
The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer! 

5. He prayed for Israel; and his voice went up 
Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those 
Whose love had been his shield; and his deep tones 
Grew tremulous. But oh! for Absalom— 

For his estranged, misguided Absalom— 

The proud, bright being, who had burst away, 

In all his princely beauty, to defy 

The heart that cherished him—for him he poured, 

In agony that would not be controlled, 

Strong supplication, and forgave him there, 

Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. 


FIFTH READER. 


141 


G. The pall was settled. He who slept beneath 
Was straitened for the grave; and as the folds 
Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed 
The matchless symmetry of Absalom. 

His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls 
Were floating round the tassels, as they swayed 
To the admitted air, as glossy now 
As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing 
The snowy fingers of Judea’s girls. 

7. His helm was at his feet; his banner, soiled 
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid, 
Reversed, beside him; and the jeweled hilt, 
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade, 
Rested, like mockery, on his covered brow. 

8. The soldiers of the king trod to and fro, 

Clad in the garb of battle ; and their chief, 

The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier, 

And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly, 

As if he feared the slumberer might stir. 

A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade 
As if a trumpet rang; but the bent form 
Of David entered, and he gave command, 

In a low tone, to his few followers, 

And left him with his dead. 


9. The king stood still 

Till the last echo died; then, throwing off 
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back 
The pall from the still features of his child, 

He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth 
In the resistless eloquence of woe: 


142 


FIFTH READER. 


10. “ Alas! my noble boy, that thou sbouldst die! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 

That death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair. 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb— 

My proud boy, Absalom! 

11. “ Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill, 

As to my bosom I have tried to press thee. 

ITow was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, 

Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, 
And hear thy sweet ‘ My father ! ’ from these dumb 
And cold lips, Absalom! 

12. “ The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the gush 

Of music, and the voices of the young; 

And life shall pass me in the mantling blush, 

And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung; 

But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shall come 
To meet me, Absalom! 

13. “ And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, 

Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, 

How will its love for thee, as I depart, 

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token ! 

It were so sweet, amid death’s gathering gloom, 

To see thee, Absalom ! 

14. “ And now, farewell! ’Tis hard to give thee up, 

With death so like a gentle slumber on thee— 
And thy dark sin!—oh, I could drink the cup, 

If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 

May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, 
My erring Absalom ! ” 


FIFTH READER. 


143 


15. He covered up his face, and bowed himself 
A moment on his child ; then, giving him 
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped 
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer; 

And, as a strength were given him of God, 

He rose up calmly, and composed the pall 
Firmly and decently, and left him there, 

As if his rest had been a breathing sleep. 

N. P. Willis. 


For Preparation. —I. See 2 Samuel xviii. 33. Trace on your map 
the course of the Jordan. Find the location of the wood of Ephraim, where 
Absalom was killed (northeast of Jerusalem), and Mahanaim, in Gilead 
(thirty-three miles northeast of the Dead Sea), where David’s headquarters 
were, and where his lament takes place. Paragraphs 1 to 6 relate what 
took place before the battle, and 6 to 15 what took place after it. 

II. Vail (veil and vale), ed'-die§, at'-ti-tude§, -course, mourn'-er, 
court'-e-sy (kurt'-), tr&m'-u-lous, con-trolled', strait'-ened (strat'nd), 
sym'-me-try, t&s'-sel§, dal'-li-ance, jew'-eled (ja'eid), bier (beer), stSad'- 
fast-ly, sack'-clbth, feat'-ure§ (fet'yurz), yearn'-ing, bruised (bruzd). 

III. Describing-words are often formed by adding the suffix ful to name- 
words— faithful, tear-ful, etc.; also by adding the suffix ous —as, peril-ous 
(ous and ful mean nearly the same); also by adding less —as, care-less. Write 
out ten words of each formation, and after each write the meaning given 
to the word by the suffix. 

IV. Waters slept, lifting winds, fashioned, estranged, supplication, 
“ straitened for the grave,” unshorn, dalliance, sackcloth, mantling. 

V. What flowers do you know of that grow in the water and rest on its 

surface ? “ That it was fashioned for a happier world ” (2) (i. e., one could 

find no indication in Nature of the great trouble among the people at the 
rebellion of Absalom). “ And he (i. e., Joab) gave command in a low tone.” 
“ Life shall pass me in the mantling blush, and the dark tresses,” etc. (i. e., 
life shall pass by me in the shape of young people whose checks mantle with 
blushes, and whose tresses, etc.). The poet or dramatist often selects for 
his theme some incident belonging to a remote locality and period of time. 
Sometimes he endeavors to portray the external manners, or the modes of 
thought and expression, actually as they existed historically in the place and 
time of the event described. Sometimes he borrows only the external form 
(names, places, costume, etc.) from that place and time, and portrays the 



144 


FIFTH HEADER. 


modes of thought, feeling, and expression of his own modern time and place. 
The behavior, feelings, thoughts, and expressions of the persons in this 
poem, as well as the style of description and reflections upon Nature, are 
all quite modern, and such as respectable and cultivated people in New 
York might indulge in. 


L.—THE BLIND PREACHER. 

1. It was one Sunday, as I traveled through the coun¬ 
ty of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of 
horses tied near a ruinous old w'ooden house in the for¬ 
est, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen 
such objects before, in traveling through these States, I 
had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place 
of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped 
me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must 
confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wil¬ 
derness was not the least of my motives. 

2. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural 
appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his 
head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriv¬ 
eled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the 
influence of a palsy; and a few moments ascertained to 
me that he was perfectly blind. 

3. The first emotions which touched my breast were 
those of mingled pity and veneration; but, ah! how soon 
were all my feelings changed ! It was a day of the ad¬ 
ministration of the Sacrament; and his subject, of course, 
was the passion of our Saviour. 

4. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times; 
I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I sup¬ 
pose that, in the wild woods of America, I was to meet 
with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a 



FIFTH READER. 145 

new and more sublime patlios than I bad ever before 
witnessed. 

5. As be descended from tbe pulpit to distribute tbe 
mystic symbol, there was a peculiar, a more than human, 
solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood 
run cold and my whole frame shiver. He then drew a 
picture of the sufferings of our Saviour: His trial before 
Pilate; His ascent up Calvary; His crucifixion ; and His 
death. 

6. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, 
had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, 
so colored! . It was all new, and I seemed to have heard 
it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so 
deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and 
every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. 

Y. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, 
that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, 
acting before our eyes. We saw the faces of the Jews— 
the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage; we 
saw the buffet. My soul kindled with a flame of indig¬ 
nation, and my hands were involuntarily and convul¬ 
sively clenched. 

8. But when he came to touch on the patience, the 
forgiving meekness, of our Saviour; when he drew to the 
life His blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven, His 
voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of par¬ 
don on His enemies—“ Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do! ”—the voice of the preacher, 
which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, 
until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force 
of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, 
and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. 

7 


146 


FIFTH READER. 


9. The effect was inconceivable. The whole house 
resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks, 
of the congregation. It was some time before the tu¬ 
mult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed. 

10. Indeed, judging by the usual but fallacious stand¬ 
ard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy 
for the situation of the preacher. For I could not con¬ 
ceive how he would be able to let his audience down from 
the height to which he had wound them, without impair¬ 
ing the solemnity and dignity of his subject; or, perhaps, 
shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But, no; 
the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation 
had been rapid and enthusiastic. 

11. The first sentence with which lie broke the awful 
silence was a quotation from Rousseau: “ Socrates died like 
a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God ! ” I despair of 
giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short 
sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole 
manner of the man as well as the peculiar crisis in the dis¬ 
course. Never before did I completely understand what 
Demosthenes meant by laying such a stress on delivery . 

William Wirt. 


For Preparation. —I. From The British Spy. “Orange County” (in 
Virginia, near the source of the Rapidan River). 

II. Tr&v'-el-ing, ap-pear'-anpe, shrfv'-eled (-eld), pal'-§y, as-per¬ 
tained', Sav'-iour (-yur), e^-haust'-ed (£gz-hawst'-) } pa'-thos, -eru-pi-fix'- 
ion (-flk'shun), col'-ored (-urd), e-nun-ci-a'-tion (-ski-a'-shun), de-lib'-er- 
ate, hand'-ker-chief (hank'er-chif), ir-re-pr£ss'-i-ble, in~eon-peiv'-a-ble, 
shrieks (shreeks), fal-la'-cious, de-spent', Rous'-seau (Rim-so'), S6-e'-ra- 
te§, De-m6s'-the-ne§. 

III. Make a list of words with like used as a suffix to form describing- 
words (e. g., man-like, war-like). Like has been contracted to ly in most 
words where it was once used (as man-ly for man-like). Make two lists of 



FIFTH READER . 


147 


describing-words ending in ly (as lovely, friendly). Let one list belong 
to name-words and the other to action-words, and express the manner of 
action. % 

IV. Preternatural, palsy, ascertained, pathos, mystic symbol, enuncia¬ 
tion, deliberate, unison, distortion, fallacious. 

V. This piece depicts for us in an impressive manner the importance of 
deliberation of utterance in aiding the expression of strong feeling. 


LI.—AMERICA. 

1. The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 

Barren of every glorious theme, 

In distant lands now waits a better time, 
Producing subjects worthy fame. 

2. In happy climes, where from the genial sun 

And virgin earth such scenes ensue, 

The force of art by Nature seems outdone, 

And fancied beauties by the true: 

3. In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

Where Nature guides and virtue rules, 

Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
The pedantry of courts and schools: 

4. There shall be sung another golden age, 

The rise of empire and of arts, 

The good and great inspiring epic rage, 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 

5. Not such as Europe needs in her decay: 

Such as she bred when fresh and young, 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 

By future poets shall be sung. 



148 


FIFTH READER. 


6. Westward the course of empire takes its way; 

The four first acts already past, 

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:— 

Time’s noblest offspring is the last! 

Bishop Berkeley. 

For Preparation. —I. Having published a “Proposal for Converting 
the Savage Americans to Christianity” in 1725, and after collecting money 
to found a college for the purpose, Berkeley set sail for Rhode Island in 
1728. In his enthusiasm he wrote this short poem. 

II. Dis-gust'-ed, beau'-tie§ (bu'tez), pSd'-ant-ry, scenes, Eu'-rope 
(U'rup), 5 ff '-spring. 

III. The suffix y is added to name-words to mean full of( or nearly the 
same as ous and ful\ thus forming describing-words, as dew-y, rock-y, 
water-y, ston-y, slipper-y, etc. It is also used to make name-words from 
describing-words, as honest-y = the state of being honest. The suffix ty 
also has the same meaning, and is used to form name-words (e. g., ability 
= the state of being able). Make lists of words thus formed. 

IV. Barren, impose, epic, animate, drama, clime3, pedantry, “ another 
golden age ” (when was the former ?). 

V. “ The Muse ” (i. e., the personification of poetry). “ Shall not im¬ 
pose for truth and sense the pedantry ” (shall not put pedantry in the place 
of truth, etc.). “ Epic rage ” (the “ rage,” or inspiration, of the poet to 
sing epic or heroic deeds). “ When fresh and young ” (5) (i. e., the time of 
Greece and Rome). “Four first acts” (there are commonly five acts, or 
parts, in a drama). “Westward the course” (he has in mind the course of 
the sun, and so says, “close the drama with the day”—i. e., with evening). 


LII.—THE ASCENT TO THE EAGLE’S NEST. 

1. Almost all tlie people in the parish were loading 
in their meadow-hay on the same day of midsummer, so 
drying was the sunshine and the wind; and huge, heaped- 
up wains, that almost hid from view the horses that drew 
them along the sward, beginning to get green with 
second growth, were moving in all directions toward the 
snug farm-yard. Never had the parish seemed before 




FIFTH READER. 


149 


so populous. Jocund was the balmy air with laughter, 
whistle, and song. 

2. But the tree-gnomons threw the shadow of “ one 
o’clock ” on the green dial-face of the earth; the horses 
were unyoked and took instantly to grazing; groups of 
men, women, lads, lasses, and children, collected under 
grove, and bush, and hedge-row ; graces were pro¬ 
nounced, some of them rather too tedious in presence of 
the mantling milk-cans, bullion-bars of butter, and crack¬ 
ling ca*kes; and the great Being who gave them that day 
their daily bread looked down from His eternal throne, 
well-pleased with the piety of His thankful creatures. 

3. The great golden eagle, the pride and pest of the 
parish, swooped down and flew away with something in 
its talons. One single, sudden, female shriek arose, and 
then shouts and outcries, as if a church-spire had tum¬ 
bled down on a congregation at a sacrament. “ Hannah 
Lamond’s bairn! Hannah Lamond’s bairn ! ” was the 
loud, fast-spreading cry. “ The eagle has ta’en off Han¬ 
nah Lamond’s bairn! ” and many hundred feet were in 
another instant hurrying toward the mountain. 

4. Tw t o miles of hill and dale, and copse and shingle, 
and many intersecting brooks lay between ; but in an in¬ 
credibly short time the foot of the mountain was alive 
with people. The eyrie was well known, and both old 
birds were visible on the rock-ledge. But who shall scale 
that dizzy cliff, which Mark Stewart, the sailor, who 
had been at the storming of many a fort, attempted in 
vain ? 

5. All kept gazing, weeping, wringing their hands in 
vain, rooted to the ground, or running back and forward, 
like so many ants essaying their new wings in discom- 


150 


FIFTH READER. 


fiture. “What’s the use—what’s the use o’ ony puir 
human means? We have no power but in prayer!” 
and many knelt down—fathers and mothers thinking of 
their own babies—as if they would force the deaf heavens 
to hear! 

6. Hannah Lamond had all this while been sitting on 
a rock, with a face perfectly white, and eyes like those of 
a mad person, fixed on the eyrie. .Nobody had noticed 
her; for, strong as all sympathies with her had been at 
the swoop of the eagle, they were now swallowed up in 
the agony of eyesight. “ Only last Sabbath was my 
sweet wee wean baptized in the name o’ the Father, and 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost! ” and on uttering these 
words, she flew ofi through the brakes and over the 
huge stones, up—up—up—faster than ever huntsman 
ran in to the death, fearless as a goat playing among 
the precipices. 

7. No one doubted—no one could doubt—that she 
would soon be dashed to pieces. But have not people 
who walk in their sleep, obedient to the mysterious 
guidance of dreams, climbed the walls of old ruins, and 
found footing, even in decrepitude, along the edge of 
unguarded battlements, and down dilapidated staircases, 
deep as draw-wells or coal-pits, and returned with open, 
fixed, and unseeing eyes, unharmed to their beds, at 
midnight ? 

8. It is all the work of the soul, to whom the body is 
a slave; and shall not the agony of a mother’s passion, 
who sees her baby, whose warm mouth had just left her 
breast, hurried ofi by a demon to a hideous death, bear 
her limbs aloft wherever there is dust to dust, till she 
reach that devouring den, and, fiercer and more furious 


FIFTH READER. 


iai 

far in the passion of love than any bird of prey that 
ever bathed its beak in blood, throttle the fiends that 
with their heavy wings would fain flap her down the 
cliffs, and hold up her.child in deliverance before the eye 
of the all-seeing God ? 

9. No stop—no stay; she knew not that she drew 
her breath. Beneath her feet Providence fastened every 
loose stone, and to her hands strengthened every root. 
How w r as she ever to descend? That fear but once 
crossed her heart, as she went up—up—up—to the little 
image of her own flesh and blood. “ The God who holds 
me now from perishing, will not the same God save me 
when my child is on my bosom ? ” 

10. Down came the fierce rushing eagles’ wings—each 
savage bird dashing close to her head, so that she saw the 
yellow of their wrathful eyes. All at once they quailed 
and were cowed. Yelling, they flew off to the stump of 
an ash, jutting out of a cliff, a thousand feet above the 
cataract; and the Christian mother falling across the 
eyrie, in the midst of bones and blood, clasped her child 
—dead—dead—dead, no doubt, but unmangled and un¬ 
torn, and swaddled up just as it was when she laid it 
down asleep among the fresh hay in the nook of the 
harvest-field. 

11. Oh, what a pang of perfect blessedness trans¬ 

fixed her heart from that faint, feeble cry: “ It lives ! it 
lives! it lives ! ” and, baring her bosom with loud laugh¬ 
ter and eyes dry as stones, she felt the lips of the uncon¬ 
scious innocent once more murmuring at the fount of 
life and love! “ O Thou great and Thou dreadful God! 

whither hast Thou brought me, one of the most sinful of 
Thy creatures ? Oh! save my soul, lest it perish, even 


1 32 


FIFTH READER. 


for Thy own name’s sake! O Thou, who diedst to save 
sinners, have mercy upon me ! ” 

12. Below were cliffs, chasms, blocks of stone, and 
the skeletons of old trees—far, far down, and dwindled 
into specks—and a thousand creatures of her own kind, 
stationary or running to and fro! Was that the sound 
of the waterfall, or the faint roar of voices ? Is that her 
native strath ?—and that tuft of trees, does it contain the 
hut in which stands the cradle of her child ? Never more 
shall it be rocked by her foot! Here must she die; and 
when her breast is exhausted, her baby, too! And those 
horrid beaks, and eyes, and talons, and wings, will return, 
and her child will be devoured at last, even within the 
dead bosom, that can protect it no more. John Wilson. 


For Preparation.—I. Professor John Wilson, of Edinburgh University. 
In 1822 he published “Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life.” He wrote 
much for Blackwood , under the name of “ Christopher North ” ? In what 
country is the scene of this piece laid ? What words tell this ? ( tcCcn for 
taken } puir for poor , bairn and wean for child, wee for little, etc.). 

II. Explain spelling and pronunciation of whis'-tle (hwis'si), shriek 
(shreek), ey'-rie (e'ry or a'ry), wring'-ing (ring'-), -cliffs, sta'-tion-a-ry 
(-shun-), un-eon'-sciohs, in'-no-gent, jo-e'-und, sa-e'-ra-ment. 

III. Explain apostrophe in “ o’clock.” What word is used for the femi¬ 
nine of lad ?—of man ? Why is a capital letter used in the following cases: 
great Being (2), Providence (9), Father (6)? Find more words spelled 
with capitals for the same reason. “ It lives ” (11)—whose words are these ? 

IV. Give meaning in your own words of wains, sward, jocund, tree- 
gnomons (the shadows of the trees told the time of day, like dials), “ graces 
were pronounced,” mantling, talons, copse, shingle, essaying, discomfiture, 
dilapitated, decrepitude, dwindled, chasms, quailed, cowed, transfixed. 

V. “ Bullion-bars of butter ” (shape and color like gold bars ?); “ female 
shriek”—how does a female’s shriek differ from any other? “A congre¬ 
gation at a sacrament ” (3)—why just at that time ? Select the sentences in 
w'hich the author makes us know the season of the year, the time of day, 
and the features of the landscape. See note to LXXXV. in regard to the 
preparation of long and difficult pieces. 



FIFTH READER. 


153 


LIU.—THE DESCENT FROM THE EAGLE’S NEST. 

1. Where, all this time, was Mark Stewart, the sailor? 
Ilalf-way up the cliffs. But his eye had got dim and 
his heart sick; and he, who had so often reefed the top¬ 
gallant sail, when at midnight the coming of the gale was 
heard afar, covered his face with his hands, and dared 
look no longer on the swimming heights. 

2. “ And who will take care of my poor, bed-ridden 
mother ? ” thought Hannah, whose soul, through the ex¬ 
haustion of so many passions, could no more retain in its 
grasp that hope which it had clutched in despair. A 
voice whispered, “ God.” She looked around, expecting 
to see an angel, but nothing moved, except a rotten 
branch, that, under its own weight, broke off from the 
crumbling rock. Her eye, by some secret sympathy of 
her soul wdth the inanimate object, watched its fall; and 
it seemed to stop not far off, on a small platform. 

3. Her child was bound within her bosom—she re¬ 
membered not how or when, but it was safe; and, 
scarcely daring to open her eyes, she slid down the shelv¬ 
ing rocks, and found herself on a small piece of firm, 
root bound soil, with the tops of bushes appearing below. 
With fingers suddenly strengthened into the power of 
iron, she swung herself down, by brier, and broom, and 
heather, and dwarf birch. Here a loosened stone leaped 
over a ledge; and no sound w r as heard, so profound was 
its fall. There, the shingle rattled down the screes, and 
she hesitated not to follow. 

4. Her feet bounded against the huge stone that 
stopped them, but she felt no pain. Her body was cal¬ 
lous as the cliff. Steep as the upright wall of a house 
was now the side of the precipice. But it was matted 


1 54 


FIFTH HEADER. 


with ivy centuries old, long ago dead, and without a 
single green leaf, hut with thousands of arm-thick stems, 
petrified into the rock, and covering it as with a trellis. 
She hound her baby to her neck, and, with hands and 
feet, clung to the fearful ladder. 

5. Turning round her head and looking down, lo! the 
whole population of the parish—so great was the multi¬ 
tude—on their knees ! and, hush! the voice of psalms! a 
hymn, breathing the spirit of one united prayer! Sad 
and solemn was the strain, hut nothing dirge-like, breath¬ 
ing not of death, but deliverance. Often had she sung 
that tune, perhaps the very words—but them she heard 
not—in her own hut, she and her mother; or in the kirk, 
along with the congregation. 

6. An unseen hand seemed fastening her fingers to 

the ribs of ivy; and, in sudden inspiration, believing that 
her life was to be saved, she became almost as fearless as 
if she had been changed into a winged creature. Again 
her feet touched stones and earth; the psalm was hushed, 
but a tremulous, sobbing voice was close beside her, and 
lo ! a she-goat, with two little kids, at her feet! “ Wild 

heights,” thought she, “ do these creatures climb, but the 
dam will lead down her kid by the easiest paths; for, oh! 
even in the brute creatures, what’s the holy power of a 
mother’s love! ” and, turning round her head, she kissed 
her sleeping baby, and for the first time she wept. 

7. Overhead frowned the front of the precipice, never 
before touched by human hand or foot. 'No one had ever 
dreamed of scaling it; and the golden eagles knew that 
well, in their instinct, as, before they built their eyrie, 
they had brushed it with their wings. But all the rest 
of this part of the mountain-side, though scarred and 
seamed and chasmed, was yet accessible; and more than 


FIFTH READER. 1 5S 

one person in the parish had reached the bottom of the 
Glead’s Cliff. 

8. Many were now attempting it; and ere the cau¬ 
tious mother had followed her dumb guides a hundred 
yards, though among dangers that, although enough to 
terrify the stoutest heart, were traversed by her without 
a shudder, the head of one man appeared, and then the 
head of another; and she knew that God had delivered 
her and her child, in safety, into the care of their fellow- 
creatures. 

9. Not a word was spoken—eyes said enough; she 
hushed her friends with her hands, and, with uplifted 
eyes, pointed to the guides lent to her by Heaven. Small, 
green plats, where those creatures nibble the wild flowers, 
became now more frequent; trodden lines, almost as easy 
as sheep-paths, showed that the dam had not led her young 
into danger; and now the brush-wood dwindled away 
into straggling shrubs, and the party stood on a little emi¬ 
nence above the stream, and forming part of the strath. 

10. There had been trouble and agitation, much sob¬ 
bing, and many tears, among the multitude, while the 
mother was scaling the cliffs; sublime was the shout that 
echoed afar the moment she reached the eyrie; then had 
succeeded a silence deep as death; in a little while arose 
that hymning prayer, succeeded by mute supplication; 
the wildness of thankful and congratulatory joy had next 
its sway; and, now that her salvation was sure, the great 
crowd rustled like a wind-swept wood. 

11. And for whose sake was all this alternation of 
agony ? A poor, humble creature, unknown to many, 
even by name; one who had but few friends, nor wished 
for more; contented to work all day, here, there, any- 


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where, that she might be able to support her aged mother 
and her little child ; and who, on Sabbath, took her seat 
in an obscure pew, set apart for paupers, in the kirk! 

12. “Fall back, and give her fresh air!” said the old 
minister of the parish; and the circle of close faces 
widened around her, lying as in death. “ Give me the 
bonnie bit bairn into my arms! ” cried first one mother, 
and then another; and it was tenderly handed around the 
circle of kisses, many of the snooded maidens bathing its 
face in tears. “ There’s na a scratch about the puir inno¬ 
cent, for the eagle, you see, maun liae stuck its talons 
into the lang claes and the shawl. Blin’, blin 5 maun they 
be, who see not the finger o’ God in this thing! ” 

13. Hannah started up from her swoon, and, looking 
wildly around, cried, “ Oh ! the bird ! the bird! the 
eagle! The eagle has carried off my bonnie wee Walter! 
Is there nane to pursue ? ” A neighbor put her baby to 
her breast, and, shutting her eyes and smiting her fore¬ 
head, the sorely bewildered creature said, in a low voice: 
“ Am I wauken ? Oh, tell me if I am wauken! or if a’ 
this be the wark o’ a fever, and the delirium o’ a dream! ” 

John Wilson. 


For Preparation. —I. Kirk (church), strath (river valley), na (for not), 
lang claes (long clothes), blin’ (blind), maun (must), nane (none), wauken 
(waking), wark (work), screes (cliffs). Note these and other Scotch words. 

II. Heights (hits), psiilm§ (samz), hymn'-ing (him'-). 

III. Meaning of “ a’ ” (11 omitted) and “ o’ ” (f) (13). 

IY. Define, in your own words, reefed, top-gallant, bed-ridden, sym¬ 
pathy, inanimate, heather, ledge, callous, petrified, trellis, tremulous, scaling, 
accessible, plats, eminence, congratulatory, alternation, paupers, swoon, 
traversed. 

Y. Write the substance of this story from memory, after taking notes 
of the contents of each verse, and then compare, verse by verse, your style 
with that of the original. 



FIFTH READER. 


157 


LIV.—THE HOT SEASON. 

1. The folks tliat on the first of May 

Wore winter-coats and hose, 

Began to say, the first of June, 

“ Good Lord ! how hot it grows! ” 

At last two Fahrenheits blew up, 

And killed two children small, 

And one barometer shot dead 
A tutor with its ball! 

2. Now all day long the locusts sang 

Among the leafless trees; 

Three new hotels warped inside out; 

The pumps could only wheeze; 

And ripe old wine, that twenty years 
Had cobwebbed o’er in vain, 

Came spouting through the rotten corks, 
Like Joly’s best champagne! 

3. The Worcester locomotives did 

Their trip in half an hour; 

The Lowell cars ran forty miles 
Before they checked the power; 

Roll brimstone soon became a drug, 
And locofocos fell; 

All asked for ice, but everywhere 
Saltpetre was to sell. 

4. Plump men of mornings ordered tights, 

But, ere the scorching noons, 

Their candle-moulds had grown as loose 
As Cossack pantaloons! 

The dogs ran mad—men could not try 
If water they would choose ; 


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A horse fell dead—he only left 
Four red-hot, rusty shoes! 

5. But soon the people could not bear 

The slightest hint of fire; 

Allusions to caloric drew 
A flood of savage ire; 

The leaves on “ Heat ” were all torn out 
From every book at school; 

And many blackguards kicked and caned, 
Because they said, “ Keep cool! ” 

6. The gas-light companies were mobbed, 

The bakers all were shot; 

The penny-press began to talk 
Of lynching Doctor Nott; 

And all about the warehouse-steps 
Were angry men in droves, 

Crashing and splintering through the doors 
To smash the patent stoves! 

7. The abolition men and maids 

Were tanned to such a hue, 

You scarce could tell them from their friends. 
Unless their eyes were blue; 

And when I left, society 

Had burst its ancient guards, 

And Brattle Street and Temple Place 
Were interchanging cards! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 


For Preparation. — I. Fah'-ren-helts (thermometers, so named from their 
inventor). How does a thermometer differ from a barometer ? What is 
each used for indicating ? “ Worcester locomotives did their trip ” (of 44 

miles to Boston; Boston to Lowell, 26 miles). 



FIFTH READER. 


169 


II. -Cbb'-w&bbed, cham-pagne' (sham-pan'), lo-eo-mo'-tive, pan-ta- 
loon', al-lQ/-§ion§ (-zhunz), pa'-tent, ab-o-li'-tion (-llsh'un), m-ter-chang'- 
ing, guards (gardz), -ea-lbr'-i-e. 

III. Explain the use of capital letters wherever they occur in this poem. 

IY. Tutor, saltpetre, Cossack, patent, lynching, mobbed, abolition, “ be¬ 
came a drug ” (in the market—no sale for it). 

Y. Note the order of the ludicrous conceits of this poem: Expansion 
of quicksilver in thermometer and barometer by heat, so rapid as to cause 
explosion ! Trees leafless from heat. Not boards only, but new buildings, 
warping “ inside out! ” Ripe wine—called “ ripe ” because it has no fermen¬ 
tation—effervesces like champagne (or soda-water)! So hot that the force 
of the steam was increased to an ungovernable degree in the locomotives. 
Brimstone, saltpetre, locofocos (matches), and fire-producing materials, in 
no demand, and for sale cheap. Plump men grew thin from perspiration. 
Dogs run mad for heat. No water to drink. Horse all consumed by heat, 
except his iron shoes ! Scientific treatises on heat (“ caloric ”) destroyed by 
people to whom it suggested the cause of their misery; even an exhortation 
to keep cool was resented for the suggestion it contained! Gas-makers, 
bakers, all who used fire or manufactured combustibles—even Dr. Elipha- 
let Nott, who invented “ patent stoves ” and heating apparatus—were in 
danger from the excited mob! Finally, all people tanned to a dark hue, 
and all social distinctions vanished ! 


LV.—HOW TO RENDER SCORNFUL AND SARCASTIC 

IDEAS. 

This head includes irony, mockery, scoffing, caustic wit 
and raillery, indirect accusation, insinuation of evil, etc. 

“ Compound Stress.” —Abrupt stress is sometimes given 
to the first part of the emphatic vowel (as in command, 
anger, and energetic statement), and is called “ radical ” 
or initial stress. It is sometimes given to the last part 
of the emphatic vowel (as in impatience, distress, painful 
anxiety, revenge, defiance, etc.), and is called “ vanishing ” 
or final stress. 

But sometimes, as in the following class of ideas, 
these two hinds of abrupt stress come together on the 



160 


FIFTH READER . 


same emphatic syllables. This occurs in the expression 
of such ideas only as have the “ compound slides ”; and 
then a kind of double emphasis is heard—that is, the 
initial and final stress together, or, as it is called, the 
“compound stress .” 

This “ compound abrupt stress ” on the “ compound 
slide ” is the characteristic vocal element which expresses 
this scornful spirit. The quantity of the emphatic sylla¬ 
bles is often much prolonged , to give ample time for this 
double stress, and the quality of voice is more or less as¬ 
pirated, to suit the nature and intensity of the feeling. 

EXAMPLE OF SCOEN. 

“ ‘ Banished v from Roms' ? ’ What’s banished\ but set 

FREE 

From daily contact of the things I loathe* ? 

6 Tried and convicted traitor' f ’ Who' says this ? 
Who’ll prove' it, at his peril', on my head? 

Banished*! I thank* you for it. It breaks my chain. 
I held some slack allegiance till this hour; 

But now* my sword’s my own a . Smile on, my lords; 

I scorn a to count what feelings'', withered hopes ', 
Strong provocations', bitter, burning wrongs a , 

I have within my heart’s hot cells shut up, 

To leave* you in your lazy dignities*. 

But here I stand and scoff* you : here I fling 
Hatred' and full defiance' in your face. 

Your consul’s merciful* ! For this all thanks* ! 

( From “ Catilineby Croly.) 

u That’s the third a umbrella* gone since Christmas! 
What were you to do' f Why, let him go home in the 
rain*, to be sure. I’m certain there was nothing about 
him* that could spoil*. Take cold f Indeed*! He 


FIFTH READER. 


161 


does not look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, 
he’d have better taken cold'' than take onr only umbrella v . 
— PooK! don’t think me a fool*, Caudle. Don’t insult* 
me. H-e A re-t-u-r-n* the umbrella! Anybody would think 
you were born yesterday \ As if anybody ever did* return 
an umbrella! Men, indeed —call themselves lords* of 
ci'eation ! Pretty lords*, when they can’t even take care 
of an umbrella a ! ” 

(From “ The Caudle Lecturesby Douglas Jerrold.) 


LVI—HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 

1. I heard the trailing garments of the Night 

Sweep through her marble halls ! 

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 
From the celestial walls ! 

2. I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

Stoop o’er me from above— 

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 

As of the one I love. 

3. I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, 

The manifold, soft chimes, 

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, 
Like some old poet’s rhymes. 

4. From the cool cisterns of the midnight air 

My spirit drank repose; 

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there— 
From those deep cisterns flows. 

5. O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear 

What man has borne before! 


162 


FIFTH READER. 


Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 

And they complain no more. 

6. Peace! peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! 
Descend with broad-winged flight, 

The welcome, the thrice prayed-for, the most fair, 
The best-beloved Night! 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 


For Preparation.— I. “ Orestes-like I breathe this prayer.” (In “ Ores¬ 
tes,” the drama of Euripides, the raving Orestes, pursued by the Furies of 
his mother, prays for “ the precious balm of Sleep,” which relieves his mal¬ 
ady : “ 0 divine oblivion of my sutferings, how wise thou art, and the goddess 
to be supplicated by all in distress! ”) 

II. Rhymes (vimz), de-light' (-lit'), haunt'-ed, broad'-winged (brawd -). 

III. Make a list of twenty words in which the prefix ad, meaning to, is 
used: e. g., ad-apt (fit to), ad-duce (bring to), ad-here (stick to), ad-join 
(join to). The d of ad generally changes so as to agree in sound with the 
following letter when it is a consonant; e. g., af-fix, ar-range, at-tend, ap¬ 
pendix, al-lot, ag grieve, an-nounce, etc. 

IV. Sable, celestial, majestic, “ cisterns of the midnight air,” perpetual, 
spell, “ haunted chambers.” 

V. What personifications in this piece ? Make a list of the metaphors 
(“ cool cisterns of the midnight air,” etc.). 


LVII.—SPEECH OF BRUTUS. 

1. Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my 
cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for 
mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you 
may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake 
your senses, that you may the better judge. 

2. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend 
of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’s love to Caesar was 
no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus 




FIFTH READER. 


163 


rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved 
Caesar less, blit that I loved Rome more. 

3. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all 
slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen ? 

4. As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was 
fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; 
but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears, for 
his love; joy, for his fortune; honor, for his valor; and 
death, for his ambition. 

5. Who is here so base, that would be a bondman ? 
If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so 
rude, that would not be a Roman ? If any, speak; for 
him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that will not 
love his country? If any, speak; for him have I of¬ 
fended. I pause for a reply.— [Citizens cry out , “ Hone, 
Brutus—none ! ”]—None! Then none have I offended. 

6. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do 
to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the 
Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; 
nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. 

[Enter Antony and others with Caesar’s body.~\ 

7. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony; 
who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive 
the benefit of his dying—a place in the commonwealth: 
as which of you shall not ? 

8. With this I depart: That, as I slew my best lover 
for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, 
when it shall please my country to need my death. 


For Preparation. —I. From the play of “Julius Caesar” (Act III., Scene 
2). It is the time when Rome passes from the republican form of gov¬ 
ernment (the “ Commonwealth ”) to that of the Empire. Brutus is animated 



164 


FIFTH READER. 


with the old spirit, and joins the conspirators who murder Caesar, the repre¬ 
sentative of the new spirit, which is destined to rule Rome henceforth. 
But the killing of Caesar does not kill what he represents, although patriot 
Brutus seems to think that it will. “Antony . . . who shall receive a 
place in the Commonwealth,” etc. (i. e., he shall be benefited by our deed, 
which saves the Republic). 

II. Am-bl'-tiotts (-shus), val'-iant, en-rolled', -eoun'-try-men (kun'-), 
Cse'-§ar, mourned. 

III. The prefixes generally may be arranged in pairs, having opposite 
meanings: e. g., ad means to, and ab, from ; attract = draw to; abstract 
— draw from. In this way, in is opposed to e or ex : include = shut in; ex¬ 
clude = shut out. {Ex takes changes to e, ef or ec } before some roots; in 
also to il t im t etc.) 

IV. Censure, “ question [cause or reasons for] his death,” extenuated 
(drawn out, diminished), “ awake your senses,” bondman, enrolled. 

V. Note in this speech, and in that of Mark Antony (LXIII.), the most 
consummate oratorical art. Brutus completely carries away the convictions 
of the people whom he addresses. Mark Antony, in a manner still more 
skillful, removes the impression that Brutus has made. With Brutus, his 
transparent honesty gives the strongest effect to his speech, while with 
Antony the affected conflict in his mind between grief for his dead friend 
and the respect in which he holds the conspirators, finally drives the people 
to utter what he himself keeps back. In § 5, Brutus adroitly prevents any 
objections, by classifying the objectors in advance. 


LVIII.—WE WATCHED HER BREATHING. 

1. We watched her breathing through the night, 

Iler breathing soft and low, 

As in her breast the wave of life 
Kept heaving to and fro. 

2. So silently we seemed to speak, 

So slowly moved about, 

As we had lent her half our powers 
To eke her living out. 



FIFTH READER. 


16S 


3. Our very hopes belied our fears, 

Our fears our hopes belied,— 

We thought her dying when she slept, 

And sleeping when she died. 

4. For when the morn came dim and sad, 

And chill with early showers, 

Her quiet eyelids closed—she had 
Another morn than ours. 

Thomas Hood. 

For Preparation.—I. “ Eke ” is little used now for add to or lengthen. 
It was a very common word for also in old English, and its kindred forms 
eac (Anglo-Saxon), auch (German), og (Danish), och (Swedish), ok (old Norse), 
etc., were or are still very much used for and or also. 

II. Through (throo), sl'-lent-ly, eye'-lid§ (i'-). 

III. The prefixes ad and ah (to and from), in and ex (in and out), have 
been mentioned, and the various changes which they undergo to make them 
agree in sound with the first letter of the root (i. e., the word to which they 
are prefixed). Make two lists of ten words each, illustrating the prefixes 
con (with) and contra (against) (e. g., co;i-clude = shut together; collect = pick 
together; contra- diet = say against); also of de (down), super and hyper (over), 
sub and hypo (under), and per (through). 

IY. “ Wave of life heaving.” 

Y. “ Seemed to speak ” (i. e., it seemed as though we spoke so low and 
moved about so slowly, because we had given her the half of our power to 
eke out her life). 


LIX.— IN THE MAINE WOODS. 

I. THE FORESTS. 

1. What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is 
the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open inter¬ 
vals, or glades, than you had imagined. Except the few 
burnt lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare 
tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, 
the forest is uninterrupted. 




166 


FIFTH READER. 


2. It is even more grim and wild than yon had antici¬ 
pated—a damp and intricate wilderness, in the spring 
everywhere wet and miry. The aspect of the country, 
indeed, is universally stern and savage, excepting the dis¬ 
tant views of the forest from hills, and the lake-prospects, 
which are mild and civilizing in a degree. 

3. The lakes are something which you are unprepared 
for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the 
forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with 
here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set 
around some jewel of the first water—so anterior, so 
superior to all the changes that are to take place on their 
shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can 
ever be. These are not the artificial forests of an Eng¬ 
lish king—a royal preserve merely. Here prevail no 
forest-laws but those of Nature. The aborigines have 
never been dispossessed, nor Nature disforested. 

4. It is a country full of evergreen-trees, of mossy 
silver-birches and watery maples—the ground dotted with 
insipid, small, red berries, and strewn with damp and 
moss-grown rocks; a country diversified with innumer¬ 
able lakes and rapid streams, peopled with trout, with 
salmon, shad, and pickerel, and other fishes. 

5. The forest resounds at rare intervals with the note 
of the chickadee, the blue-jay, and the woodpecker, the 
scream of the fish-hawk and the eagle, the laugh of the 
loon, and the whistle of ducks along the solitary streams; 
at night, with the hooting of owls and howling of wolves; 
in summer, swarming with myriads of black flies and mos¬ 
quitoes, more formidable than wolves to the white man. 

6. Such is the home of the moose, the hear, the cari¬ 
bou, the wolf, the heaver, and the Indian. Who shall 


FIFTH READER. 


167 


describe the inexpressible tenderness and immortal life 
of the grim forest, where Nature, though it be mid-win¬ 
ter, is ever in her spring; where the moss-grown and de¬ 
caying trees are not old, but seem to enjoy a perpetual 
youth; and blissful, innocent Nature, like a serene in¬ 
fant, is too happy to make a noise, except by a few tink¬ 
ling, lisping birds, and trickling rills. 

H. SHOOTING RAPIDS. 

7. We reached the Dam at noon. The boatmen went 
through one of the log sluices in the bateau, where the 
fall was ten feet at the bottom, and took us in below. 
Here was the longest rapid in our voyage, and perhaps 
the running this was as dangerous and arduous a task 
as any. 

8. In shooting rapids the boatman has this problem 
to solve: to choose a circuitous and safe course amid a 
thousand sunken rocks, scattered over a long distance, at 
the same time that he is moving steadily on at the rate of 
fifteen miles an hour. Stop he cannot: the only question 
is, Where will he go? The bow-man chooses the course 
with all his eyes about him, striking broad off with his 
paddle, and drawing the boat by main force into her 
course. The stern-man faithfully follows the bow. 

9. Down the rapids we shot at a headlong rate. If 
we struck a rock, we were split from end to end in an in¬ 
stant. Now like a bait bobbing for some river monster 
amid the eddies; now darting to this side of the stream, 
now to that, gliding swift and smooth near to our de¬ 
struction, or striking broad off with the paddle and draw¬ 
ing the boat to right or left with all our might, in order 
to avoid a rock. We soon ran through the mile, and 
floated in Quakish Lake. 


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10. After such a voyage, the troubled and angry 
waters, which once had seemed terrible and not to be 
trifled with, appeared tamed and subdued; they had been 
bearded and worried in their channels, pricked and 
whipped into submission with the spike-pole and paddle, 
and all their spirit and their danger taken out of them; 
and the most swollen and impetuous rivers seemed but 
playthings henceforth. 

11. I began at length to understand the boatman’s 
familiarity with and contempt for the rapids. “ Those 
Fowler boys,” said Mrs. M., “are perfect ducks for the 
water.” They had run down to Lincoln, according to her, 
thirty or forty miles, in a bateau, in the night, for a doctor, 
when it was so dark that they could not see a rod before 
them, and the river was swollen so as to be almost a con¬ 
tinuous rapid, so that the doctor cried, when they brought 
him up by daylight, “ Why, Tom, how did you see to 
steer ? ” “ W e didn’t steer much—only kept her straight.” 
And yet they met with no accident. Henry D. Thorcau. 


For Preparation. —I. What have you read from this author? (VII., 
XLIV.) Describe the following animals: moose, bear, caribou, beaver, 
shad, trout, pickerel, chickadee. “Lincoln”—in what part of Maine? 
(Aroostook County.) 

II. •Gon-tin'-u-oiis-ness, un-m-ter-rupt'-ed, in'-tri-eate, £iv'-il-Iz- 
ing, am'-e-thyst, ar-ti-fi'-cial (-fish'ai), ab-o-rig'-i-ne§, dis pos-sSssed', 
strewn (strun), myr'-i-ad§, mos-qui'-toeg (mus-ke'-), ^ir-eu'-i-tohs, 
straight (strat). 

III. Explain the abbreviations: Mrs., Mr., Dr., Co., r. m., N. B., viz., a. d., 
Aug., Maj., M. D., E., W., N. E., Qr. 

IV. Continuousness, glades, grim, intricate, aspect, “ amethyst jewels,” 
“jewel of the first water,” anterior, superior, artificial forests, royal pre¬ 
serve, diversified, formidable, sluices, bateau, arduous, waters bearded. 

V. What view does the author of this piece seem to take of Nature ? 
Does he seem to enjoy the wilderness for its sports (hunting and fishing), 
or has he the inteRest of a scientific explorer? (Rather, a poet’s interest.) 



FIFTH READER. 


169 


LX.—MARCO BOZZARIS. 

1. At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk lay dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 
Should tremble at his power. 

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror. 

In dreams, his song of triumph heard; 

Then wore his monarch’s signet-ring; 

Then pressed that monarch’s throne, a king 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden’s garden-bird. 

2. At midnight, in the forest shades, 

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, 

True as the steel of their tried blades, 

Heroes in heart and hand. 

There had the Persian’s thousands stood; 

There had the glad earth drunk their blood, 

In old Platsea’s day; 

And now, there breathed that haunted air, 

The sons of sires who conquered there 
With arms to strike, and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far as they. 

3. An hour passed on ; the Turk awoke; 

That bright dream was his last; 

He woke to hear his sentries shriek, 

“ To arms! They come—the Greek! the Greek! ” 
He woke to die ’mid flame and smoke, 

And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud, 

And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 


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Bozzaris cheer his hand : 

“ Strike, till the last armed foe expires! 
Strike, for your altars and your fires ! 

Strike, for the green graves of your sires— 
God, and your native land !” 

4. They fought, like brave men, long and well; 

They piled the ground with Moslem slain ; 
They conquered, hut Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 

His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile, when rang their proud hurrah, 
And the red field was won; 

Then saw in death his eyelids close, 

Calmly, as to a night’s repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

5. Come to the bridal-chamber, Death! 

Come to the mother when she feels 
For the first time her first-born’s breath; 

Come when the blessed seals 
Which close the pestilence are broke, 

And crowded cities wail its stroke; 

Come in consumption’s ghastly form, 

The earthquake’s shock, the ocean storm ; 
Come when the heart beats high and warm 
With banquet-song, and dance and wine, 
And thou art terrible; the tear, 

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 

• And all we know, or dream, or fear 
Of agony, are thine. 

6. But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free, 


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171 


Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word, 

And in its hollow tones are heard 
The thanks of millions yet to be. 

I. Bozzaris! with the storied brave, 

Greece nurtured in her glory’s time, 

Best thee ! there is no prouder grave, 

Even in her own proud clime. 

We tell thy doom without a sigh, 

For thou art Freedom’s now, and Fame’s— 

One of the few, the immortal names, 

That were not born to die. 

Fitz- Greene Halleck. 


For Preparation.—I. Marco Bozzaris (killed August 20, 1823, in an at¬ 
tack which he led upon the advancing Turks near Missolonghi). “ Suliote ” 
(dwellers in the Suli Mountains, in the north of Greece). “Plataea’s day” 
(victory gained by the Greeks under Pausanius over the Persians under 
Mardonius, 479 B. C.). “ Moslem slain ”—why were the Turks called “ Mos¬ 
lem ” ? (= Mussulmans = Mohammedans). 

II. Sup'-pli-an^e, -eftn'-quer-or (kdnk'er-ur), steel, haunt'-ed, s&n'- 
trie§, -e5m'-rade§, ghast'-ly, knell (n&), prtfph'-et, nftrt'-ured. 

III. Transpose the 7th stanza into prose (“ Bozzaris ! Rest thee with 
the storied brave (that) Greece nurtured in her glory’s time,” etc.). 

IY. Trophies, signet-ring, “ haunted air,” banquet-song, “ storied brave.” 

Y. What flowers close at set of sun ? What allusion in “ blessed seals 
that close the pestilence ” (Revelation viii.). 


LXI.—GIANT DESPAIR. 

1. But, by this time, the waters were greatly risen; 
by reason of which the way of going back was very dan¬ 
gerous. Then I thought that it is easier going out of 
the way when we are in, than going in when we are out. 
Yet they adventured to go back; but it was so dark, and 




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the flood so high, that in their going back they had like to 
have been drowned nine or ten times. Neither could they, 
with all the skill they had, get again to the stile that night. 

2. Wherefore, at last, lighting under a little shelter, 
they sat down there till daybreak ; but, being weary, they 
fell asleep. Now there was, not far from the place where 
they lay, a castle, called Doubting Castle, the owner 
whereof was Giant Despair; and it was in his grounds 
they now were sleeping. Wherefore, he, getting up in 
the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, 
caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. 

3. Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bade them 
awake, and asked them whence they were, and what they 
did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims, 
and that they had lost their way. Then said the giant: 
“ You have this night trespassed on me by trampling and 
lying on my ground; and therefore you must go along 
with me.” So they were forced to go, because he was 
stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for 
they knew themselves in a fault. 

4. The giant drove them before him, and put them 
into his castle, into a very dark dungeon. Here, then, 
they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, 
without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or 
any one to ask how they did. They were therefore here 
in evil case, and were far from friends and acquaintance. 
Now, in this place Christian had double sorrow, because 
it was through his unadvised counsel that they were 
brought into this distress. 

5. Now, Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was 
Diffidence. So, when he was gone to bed, he told his 
wife what he had done: to wit, that he had taken a 


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173 


couple of prisoners and cast them into his dungeon for 
trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her, also, 
what he had best to do further to them ? So she asked 
him what they were, whence they came, and whither they 
were bound? and he told her. Then she counseled 
him that, when he arose in the morning, he should beat 
them without mercy. 

6. So, when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crab- 
tree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to them, 
and there first falls to rating of them as if they were 
dogs, although they gave him never a word of distaste. 
Then he falls upon them, and beats them fearfully in 
such sort, that they were not able to help themselves, or 
turn them upon the floor. This done, he withdraws, and 
leaves them there to condole their misery and to mourn 
under their distresses. 

7. So all that day they spent their time in nothing 
but sighs and bitter lamentations. 

8. The next night she talked with her husband about 
them further; and, understanding that they were yet 
alive, did advise him to counsel them to make away with 
themselves. So, when morning was come, he goes to 
them in a surly manner, as before, and perceiving them 
to be very sore with the stripes that he hath given them 
the day before, he told them that, since they were never 
like to come out of that place, their only way would be 
forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with 
knife, halter, or poison. 

9. u For why,” said he, u should you choose life, see¬ 
ing it is attended with so much bitterness?” But they 
desired him to let them go. With which he looked ugly 
upon them, and, rushing to them, had doubtless made an 


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end of them himself, but that he fell into one of his 
fits; for he sometimes, in sunshiny weather, fell into 
fits, and lost for a time the use of his hand. Wherefore 
he withdrew, and left them, as before, to consider what 
to do. Then did the prisoners consult between them¬ 
selves whether it was best to take his counsel or no. 
And thus they began to discourse: 

10 . “Brother,” said Christian, “what shall we do? 
The life that we now live is miserable! For my part I 
know not whether it is better to live thus, or to die out 
of hand. My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather 
than life, and the grave is more easy for me than this 
dungeon! Shall we be ruled by the giant ? ” 

11. Said Hopeful: “Indeed, our present condition is 
dreadful; and death would be far more welcome to me 
than thus forever to abide. But let us consider, the lord 
of the country to which we are going hath said, ‘ Thou 
shalt do no murder,’ no, not to another man’s person. 
Much more, then, are we forbidden to take his counsel to 
kill ourselves. 

12. “ Besides, he that kills another can but commit 
murder upon his body; but for one to kill himself is to 
kill body and soul at once. And moreover, my brother, 
thou talkest of ease in the grave; but hast thou forgotten 
the hell, whither, for certain, the murderers go? For 
‘no murderer hath eternal life,’ etc. And let us con¬ 
sider, again, that all law is not in the hand of Giant De¬ 
spair. Others, so far as I can understand, have been 
taken by him as well as we, and yet have escaped out of 
his hands. 

13 . “ Who knows but that God, who made the world, 
may cause that Giant Despair may die; or that, at some 


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176 


time or other, he may forget to lock us in; or that he 
may, in a short time, have another of his fits before us, 
and may lose the use of his limbs? And if ever that 
should come to pass again, for my part, I am resolved to 
pluck up the heart of a man and to try my utmost to get 
from under his hand. I was a fool that I did not try to 
do it before; but, however, my brother, let us be patient 
and endure a while. 

14. “ The time may come that may give us a happy 
release. But let us not be our own murderers.” With 
these words Hopeful at present did moderate the mind of 
his brother. So they continued together in the dark that 
day in their sad and doleful condition. 

John Bunyan. 

For Preparation.—I. Have you read “ The Pilgrim’s Progress ” (from 
which this extract is made) ? Christian and Hopeful have strayed over the 
stile into the wrong path, and have lost their way. 

II. TrSs'-passed, a-e-quaint'-an^e, griev'-ohs, dun'-geon (-jun), per- 
ceiv'-ing, a-mazed', pri§'-on-er (priz'n-er), ju-ris-di-e'-tion, bade (bad), 
W£dne§'-day (Wenz'dy), -eoun'-sel (and -eoun'-Qil), -eohp'-le (kup'i). 

III. What , whence , and whither —with what two letters do these words 
begin ? Name some other words used in asking questions that begin with 
the same letters (e. g., why, when, etc.). Note the relation of the sentences, 
“ So when he was gone,” etc., “ Then he asked her,” etc. {then points out, 
and when asks). Find other words beginning with the letters th, that point 
out—e. g., this (which ?), that (what ?), thou (who ?), thither (whither ?), and 
give the corresponding question-words. 

IV. Stile, surly, condole, celestial, “ in evil case.” 

V. (This is an allegory or continued metaphor—Christian life repre¬ 
sented as a pilgrimage; its trials, as giants, dungeons, etc.) Note the fact 
that their bewilderment at being lost occasions despair (figured as a giant); 
they are filled with doubt; Diffidence (distrust in one’s powers) urges on 
Despair (utter loss of courage and hope), which afflicts them with many 
blows, so that they sigh and lament. In their diffidence and despair they 
debate the question of suicide (8 to 13). “In sunshiny weather he fell 
into fits ” (in sunshiny, cheerful moods of the soul, despair is powerless). 



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LXII.—ESCAPE FROM DOUBTING CASTLE. 

1. Well, toward evening the giant goes down into 
the dungeon again to see if his prisoners had taken his 
counsel. But when he came there he found them alive; 
and, truly, alive was all: for now, what for want of bread 
and water, and by reason of the wounds they received 
when he beat them, they could do little but breathe. 

2. But, I say, he found them alive, at which he fell 
into a grievous rage, and told them that, seeing that 
they had disobeyed his counsel, it should be worse with 
them than if they had never been born. At this they 
trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a 
swoon. But coming a little to himself again, they re¬ 
newed their discourse about the Giant’s counsel, and 
whether yet they had best take it or no. 

3. Now Christian again seemed to be for doing it, 
but Hopeful made his second reply as followeth : “ My 
brother, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast 
been heretofore ? Apollyon could not crush thee; nor 
could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel, in the Yal- 
ley of the Shadow of Death. 

4. “What hardships, terror, and amazement hast 
thou already gone through! and art thou now nothing 
but fear ? Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with 
thee—a far weaker man by nature than thou art; also 
this giant has wounded me as well as thee, and has also 
cut olf the bread and water from my mouth; and with 
thee I mourn without the light. 

5. “ But let us exercise a little more patience. Re¬ 
member how thou playedst the man at Yanity Fair, and 
wast neither afraid of the chain nor cage, nor yet of 


FIFTH READER. 


177 


bloody death. Wherefore let us, at least to avoid the 
shame that becomes not a Christian to be found in, bear 
up with patience as well as we can.” 

6. Now, night being come again, and the Giant and 
his wife being in bed, she asked him concerning the pris¬ 
oners, and if they had taken his counsel; to which he 
replied: “ They are sturdy rogues ; they choose rather to 
bear all hardships, than to make away with themselves.” 

7. Then said she: “ Take them into the castle yard 
to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those 
that thou hast already dispatched, and make them be¬ 
lieve, ere a week comes to an end, thou wilt also tear 
them in pieces as thou hast done their fellows before 
them.” 

8. So, when the morning was come, the Giant goes to 
them again and takes them into the castle yard, and 
shows them as his wife had bidden him. “ These,” said 
he, “ were pilgrims as you are, once ; and they trespassed 
in my grounds as you have done, and when I thought fit 
I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do 
you. Go! Get you down to your den again ! ” And 
with that he beat them all the way thither. 

9. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in lament¬ 
able case, as before. Now, when night was come, and 
Mrs. Diffidence and her husband the Giant had gone to 
bed, they began to renew their discourse of their prison¬ 
ers; and withal the old Giant wondered that he coufd 
neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. 

10. And with that his wife replied: “ I fear that they 
live in hopes that some one will come to relieve them, or 
that they have picklocks about them, by the means of 
which they hope to escape.” 


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“ And sayest thou so, my dear ? ” said the Giant. “ I 
will therefore search them in the morning.” 

Well, on Saturday night they began to pray, and 
continued in prayer till almost break of day. 

11. Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as 
one half-amazed, brake out in this passionate speech: 
“ What a fool,” quoth he, “ am I, thus to lie in a stinking 
dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a 
key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am per¬ 
suaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.” Then said 
Hopeful: “ That is good news, good brother! Pluck it 
out of thy bosom, and try.” 

12. Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and 
began to try at the dungeon-door, whose bolt, as he 
turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with 
ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then 
he went to the outward door that leads into the castle 
yard, and with this key opened that door also. After, 
he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; 
but that lock went very hard, yet the key did open it. 

13. Then they thrust open the door to make their 
escape with speed ; but that gate, as it opened, made such 
a creaking that it waked Giant Despair; who, hastily ris¬ 
ing to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his 
fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after 
them. Then they went on and came to the king’s high¬ 
way, and were safe, because they were out of the Giant’s 
jurisdiction. 

14. Now, when they were gone over the stile, they 
began to contrive with themselves what they should do 
at the stile to prevent those that should come after from 
falling into the hand of Giant Despair. So they con- 


FIFTH READER. 


179 


sented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the 
stile thereof this sentence: “ Over this stile is the way to 
Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who 
despiseth the king of the celestial country, and seeks to 
destroy his holy pilgrims.” Many, therefore, that followed 
after, read what was written, and escaped the danger. 

John Bunyan. 


For Preparation.—I. “ Apollyon” (the fiend that Christian had fought 
in the “ Valley of Humiliation ”) (LXX.). “ Vanity Fair ” (where Christian’s 
companion, Faithful, had been put to death, and where Hopeful had joined 
him). “Valley of the Shadow of Death” (wherein he had encountered 
fearful “ hardships, terror, and amazement ”). “ King of the celestial coun¬ 
try ” (whose highway they had left). 

II. Pa'-tien^e (-ahens), pri§'-on-er§ (priz'n-), dis-patched', a-gain' 
(-gSn'), tMre'-fore, creak'-ing, pur-sue'. 

III. Write, wrote, written (these are forms of write). Give the similar 
forms of <70, come, is, find, have, bid, do, think. 

IV. Jurisdiction, “ cut off the bread and water from my mouth.” 

V. When Christian and Hopeful are escaping from Doubt, note that 
Despair has his fit of powerlessness come over him. (When we see our 
way clearly, despair no longer molests us.) 


LX111.—MARK ANTONY’S ORATION. 

1. Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me 
your ears: 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 

The evil that men do lives after them ; 

The good is oft interred with their bones: 

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 

And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 




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2. Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest 
(For Brutus is an honorable man; 

So are they all, all honorable men), 

Come I* to speak in Caesar’s funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 

But Brutus says, he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

3. He hath brought many captives home to Borne, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; 
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

4. You all did see, that on the Lupercal 
I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition % 

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious; 

And, sure, he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

5. You all did love him once, not without cause: 
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him! 
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 

And men have lost their reason! Bear with me; 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 

And I must pause till it come back to me. 

6. 1st Citizen. Methinks there is much reason in 

sayings. 

2 Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
Caesar has had great wrong. 


FIFTH READER. 


181 


3 Cit. Has he, masters ? 

I fear there will a worse come in his place. 
h Cit. Marked ye his words ? He would not take the 
crown; 

Therefore, ’tis certain he was not ambitious. 

1 Cit . If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 

# Cit. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping. 
3 Cit. There’s not a nobler man in Rome than An¬ 
tony. 

Ji Cit. How mark him: he begins again to speak. 

7. Ant. But yesterday, the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world: now lies he there, 

And none so poor to do him reverence. 

O masters! if I were disposed to stir 
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 

"Who, you all know, are honorable men. 

I will not do them wrong. I rather choose 
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

8. But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar; 

I found it in his closet: ’tis his will; 

Let but the commons hear this testament 
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read), 

And they w'ould go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds, 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood; 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 

And, dying, mention it within their wills, 

Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, 

Unto their issue. 

9. Jf. Cit. We’ll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony ! 
All. The will! the will! We will hear Caesar’s will! 


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Ant. Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it: 
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. 

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; 

And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, 

It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 

’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs; 

For if you should, oh, what would come of it! 

10. ^ Git. Head the will! We’ll hear it, Antony ! 
You shall read us the will—Caesar’s will! 

Ant. Will you be patient? Will you stay a while? 

I have o’ershot myself to tell you of it. 

I fear I wrong the honorable men 

Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar: I do fear it! 

Jf Cit. They were traitors!—Honorable men! 

All. The will!—the testament! 

2 Cit. They were villains—murderers! The will!— 

read the will! 

11. Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will ? 
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, 

And let me show you him that made the will. 

Shall I descend ? And will you give me leave ? 

All. Come down. 

# Git. Descend. [He comes down.'] 

3 Cit. You shall have leave. 

Git. A ring! Stand round! 

1 Git. Stand from the hearse! stand from the body ! 

2 Cit. Hoorn for Antony—most noble Antony! 

Ant. Hay, press not so upon me; stand far off. 

All. Stand back! Room! Bear back! 

12. Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle; I remember 

The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 

’Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent, 


FIFTH READER. 


183 


That day he overcome the Kervii. 

Look! in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through: 

See, what a rent the envious Casca made! 

13. Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed; 
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel: 

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! 

14. This was the most unkindest cut of all; 

For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms, 

Quite vanquished him : then burst his mighty heart; 
And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 

Even at the base of Pompey’s statue, 

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen! 

15. Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 

While bloody treason flourished over us. 

Oh, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel 
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops. 

Kind souls, what weep you, when you but behold 
Our Caesar’s vesture wounded ? Look you here: 

Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors. 

16. 1 Cit. O piteous spectacle ! 

0 Cit. O noble Caesar! 

3 Cit. O woful day! 

J Cit. O traitors! villains! 

1 Cit. O most bloody sight! 

All. We will be revenged ! Revenge! About!—seek 
—burn—fire—kill—slay ! Let not a traitor live ! 


184 


FIFTH READER. 


Ant. Stay, countrymen! [.They are rushing out .] 
1 Cit. Peace, there! Hear the noble Antony ! 

# Cit. We’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die with 
him! 

17. Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir 

you up 

To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 

They that have done this deed are honorable. 

What private griefs they have, alas! I know not, 

That made them do it; they are wise and honorable, 
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: 

I am no orator, as Brutus is, 

But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, 

That love my friend; and that they know full well 
That gave me public leave to speak of him. 

18. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, 
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 

To stir men’s blood; I only speak right on ; 

I tell you that which you yourselves do know: 

Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds—poor, poor dumb 
mouths— 

And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, 

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
The stones of Home to rise and mutiny. 

19. All. We’ll mutiny ! 

1 Cit. We’ll burn the house of Brutus ! 

3 Cit. Away, then ! Come, seek the conspirators! 
Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen—yet hear me speak. 
All. Peace, ho ! Hear Antony—most noble Antony! 


FIFTH READER. 


185 


Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not 
what! 

Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves ? 

Alas! you know not: I must tell you, then. 

You have forgot the will I told you of. 

20. AU. Most true; the will—let’s stay, and hear the 

will! 

Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar’s seal. 

To every Roman citizen he gives, 

To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 

£ Cit. Most noble Caesar! We’ll revenge his death. 

3 Cit. O royal Caesar! 

Ant. Hear me with patience. 

All. Peace, ho! 

Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 

His private arbors, and new-planted orchards, 

On this side Tiber ; he hath left them you, 

And to your heirs forever ; common pleasures, 

To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 

Here was a Caesar ! When comes such another ? 

21. 1 Cit. Never, never ! Come, away—away ! 

We’ll burn his body in the holy place, 

And with the brands fire the traitors’ houses. 

Take up the body ! 

0 Cit. Go, fetch fire ! 

3 Cit. Pluck down benches! 

4- Cit. Pluck down forms, windows—anything! 

[Exeunt Citizens, with the hodyi ] 
Ant. Now let it work! Mischief, thou art afoot, 
Take thou what course thou wilt! 

William Shakespeare. 

For Preparation.— I. From “ Julius Caesar,” Act III., Scene 2; it 
follows the speech of Brutus (LVII.). 



186 


FIFTH READER. 


II. Bur'-y (ber'ry), Qse'-gar, in-terred', griev'-oiis, fu'-ner-al, rea'- 
gon (r§'zn), heirg (arz), pa'-tient (-shent), trai'-torg, vil'-laing, -eom-pSl', 
de-sgSnd', dra-eh'-mag (drak'-). 

III. The prefix pro means forward; re or retro , back or backward. 
Make a list of words with these prefixes. 

IV. Ambitious, ransoms, coffers, sterner, Lupercal, refuse, disprove, bru¬ 
tish, reverence, parchment, testament, bequeathing, legacy, inflame, envious, 
ingratitude, treason, dint of pity, vesture, spectacle, revenged, mutiny, con¬ 
spirators, recreate. 

V. In order to gain the attention and good-will of the people who have 
just been moved by Brutus, he begins by disclaiming his intention to praise 
Caesar. Follow out his thought from this to the end, where he comes out 
openly and calls Brutus and the rest “ traitors ” : noble Brutus says Caesar 
was ambitious; if so, a grievous fault, but grievously answered for. He 
was my friend, faithful and just to me; however, an honorable man calls 
him “ ambitious.” (“ Honorable ” refers to the high tone of Brutus’s 
speech and his “ believe me, for mine honor,” and “ have respect to mine 
honor,” etc.) He proceeds to call attention to the acts of Caesar: (a) ran¬ 
soms ; (b) wept for the poor (this touches their interest); (c) refused a 
crown. Why don’t you mourn for him ? He pauses here to give time for 
the speech to have its effect. The conversation between the citizens shows 
how well he has calculated. He proceeds to speak of the greatness of Caesar 
and his sudden downfall. Hints that he could stir them to mutiny, but pre¬ 
fers to wrong them and himself rather than the honorable men (“ honorable ” 
now begins to be ironical). Caesar’s will would inflame them, but he counsels 
patience. Hints that they are heirs of Caesar’s property. Consents to read 
the will. Shows the mantle of Caesar stabbed by traitors, and particularly 
by Brutus, and Caesar loved Brutus. What ingratitude ! Antony’s modesty: 
no orator as Brutus is. Reads the will, and lets the mischief work. 


LXIV.—SANCHO PANZA’S GOVERNMENT. 

1. The first case that occurred was a question put by 
a stranger, in presence of the steward and the rest of the 
assistants: “ My lord/’ said he, “ a certain manor is di¬ 
vided by a large river— I beg your honor will be atten¬ 
tive, for the case is of great consequence and some diffi¬ 
culty. 




FIFTH HEADER. 


187 


2. “ I say, then, upon this river is a bridge, and at one 
end of it a gibbet, together with a sort of court-ball, in 
which four judges usually sit, to execute the law enacted 
by the lord of the river, bridge, and manor, which runs 
to this effect: ‘Whosoever shall pass over this bridge, 
must first swear whence he comes and whither he goes; 
if he swears the truth, he shall be allowed to pass; but 
if he forswear himself, he shall die upon the gallows, 
without mercy or respite.’ 

3. “ This law, together with the vigorous penalty, 
being known, numbers passed, and, as it appeared they 
swore nothing but the truth, the judges permitted them 
to pass freely and without control. It happened, how¬ 
ever, that one man’s oath being taken, he affirmed, and 
swore by his deposition, that he was going to be hanged 
on that gibbet, and had no other errand or intention. 

4. “ The judges, having considered this oath, ob¬ 
served : 4 If we allow the man to pass freely, he swore to 
a lie, and, therefore, ought to be hanged according to 
law; and if we order him to be hanged, after he hath 
sworn he was going to be suspended on that gibbet, he 
will have sworn the truth, and, by the same law, ought 
to be acquitted. I beg, therefore, to know of your honor, 
my lord governor, what the judges must do with this 
man? for hitherto they are doubtful and in suspense; 
and, having heard of your lordship’s acute and elevated 
understanding, they have sent me to entreat your honor, 
in their names, to favor them with your opinion in a case 
of such doubt and intricacy.’ ” 

5. To this address Sancho replied: “Assuredly, those 
judges who sent you to me might have spared them¬ 
selves the trouble; for I am a man that may be said 
to be rather blunt than acute; nevertheless, repeat the 


188 


FIFTH READER. 


business so that I may understand it fully, and who 
knows but I may chance to hit the nail on the head ?” 

6. The interrogator having repeated his story again 
and again, Sancho said: “ I think I can now explain the 
case in the twinkling of an eye : and this it is: A man 
swears he is going to be hanged on such a gibbet; if he 
actually suffers upon that gibbet he swore the truth, and, 
by the enacted law, ought to be allowed freely to pass 
the bridge; but, if he is not hanged, he swore false, 
and for that reason he ought to suffer upon the gib¬ 
bet.” 

7. u The case is exactly as my lord governor con¬ 
ceives it,” said the messenger; “ and, with respect to the 
scope and understanding of the matter, there is no further 
room for doubt or interrogation.” “ I say, then,” replied 
Sancho, “ that part of the man which swore truth ought 
to be allowed to pass ; and that which told a lie ought to 
be hanged; and, in this manner, the terms or conditions 
of passing will be literally fulfilled.” 

8. “ But, my lord governor,” replied the questioner, 
u in that case it will be necessary to divide the man into 
two parts, namely, the false and the true; and, if he is 
so divided, he must certainly die; therefore, the intent 
of the law will be frustrated, whereas there is an express 
necessity for its being accomplished.” 

9. “ Come hither, honest friend,” said Sancho; “ either 
I am a blockhead, or this passenger you mention has an 
equal title to be hanged and to live and pass over the 
bridge; for, if the truth saves him on one side, his false¬ 
hood condemns him equally on the other. Now, this 
being the case, as it certainly is, I think you must tell 
the gentlemen who sent you hither, that, as the reasons 


FIFTH READER. 


189 


for condemning and for acquitting the culprit are equally 
balanced, they shall let him freely pass; for it is always 
more laudable to do good than harm; and to this opinion 
I would subscribe, if I could write my name. 

10. “ Nor, indeed, have I spoken my own sentiment 
on this occasion; but I have recollected one among the 
many precepts I received from my master, Don Quix¬ 
ote, the night before I set out for the government of 
this island : he said that, when justice was doubtful, I 
should choose and lean toward mercy; and it pleased 
God that I should now remember this maxim, which 
falls so pat to the present purpose.” 

Cervantes. 


For Preparation. — I. One of the richest parts of that wonderful work 
of humor, “ Don Quixote,” is that wherein is related the history of Sancho 
Panza’s government on the island of Barataria. The above extract is from 
the nineteenth chapter. 

II. Man'-or, gib'-bet, r&s'-pite (-pit), rig'-or-oiis, ap-peared', 
troub'-le (trub'i), in-t&r'-ro-ga-tor, nS^'-es-sa-ry, gov'-ern-ment, Quix'- 
ote (or Quijote, Ke-Wtay). 

III. Make a list of twelve words using either circum or peri as prefixes 
(signifying around, about );—of twelve using the prefix per , or the prefix dia 
(meaning through), in contradistinction to circum ; —of twelve using con or 
syn (meaning together) ;—and twelve with contra or anti (meaning against or 
in opposition to). 

IV. Penalty, deposition, scope, literally, intent, frustrated, laudable, 
sentiment, precepts, maxim, culprit. 

V. The question here involved is the old sophism of Eubulides, “ The 

Liar or the Crocodile.” “ Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies ? If 
he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar ? If 
not, then is not his assertion a lie ? ” “ The crocodile stole a man’s child, 

and, on being asked by the father to return it, promised to do so on con¬ 
dition that the father answered truly the question he was about to ask; 
otherwise he would keep the child. His question was: ‘ Shall I return you 
the child ? ’ If the father says 1 Yes,’ then the crocodile keeps the child, 
and the father answers falsely; if ‘ No,’ then the crocodile cannot keep the 



190 


FIFTH READER. 


child, nor is the father entitled to receive it according to the conditions.” 
It will be noticed that the difficulty arises in the fact of self-relation: the 
one assertion relates to another assertion of the same person; and the one 
assertion being conditioned upon the other, the difficulty arises. It is the 
question of self-contradiction—of two mutually contradictory statements ; 
one must be false. It is a sophism, but one that continually occurs among 
unsophisticated reasoners. It is also a practical sophism, for it is continu¬ 
ally being acted in the world around us (e. g., a person seeks pleasure by 
such means that, while he enjoys himself, he undermines his health, or sins 
against his conscience, and thus draws inevitably on him physical suffering 
and an uneasy soul). It is therefore all-worthy of studying in its purely 
logical form. All universal negative assertions (and a lie is a negation) are 
liable to involve the assertion itself in self-contradiction: “I never tell the 
truth ” (if you do now, your assertion is false ; if what you say is true, then 
it is false). Said a selfish clown: “ I wish all men were dead except my 
family; then we would keep a hotel.” Suicide is a practical application of 
this sophism. In the interest of pleasure, to escape physical pain, he pre¬ 
cludes also physical pleasure. Murder incurs the punishment of death; 
self-murder unites crime and punishment. “ Killing the goose that laid the 
golden egg ” is also another application. 


LXV.—THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT 

BALAKLAVA 

1. Half a league—half a league— 

Half a league onward, 

All in the valley of Death, 

Rode the Six Hundred! 

2. Into the valley of Death 

Rode the Six Hundred! 

For up came an order which 
Some one had blundered: 

“ Forward, the Light Brigade! 

Take the guns! ” Rolan said. 

Into the valley of Death 
Rode the Six Hundred ! 



FIFTH READER. 

3. “ Forward, the Light Brigade! ” 
No man was there dismayed— 
Not though the soldiers knew 

Some one had blundered. 
Theirs not to make reply; 
Theirs not to reason why; 
Theirs but to do and die! 

Into the valley of Death 
Rode the Six Hundred! 

4. Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon in front of them, 

Yolleyed and thundered! 

5. Stormed at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode, and well; 
Into the jaws of Death, 

Into the mouth* of hell, 

Rode the Six Hundred! 

6. Flashed all their sabers bare, 
Flashed all at once in air, 
Sabering the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wondered. 
Plunged in the battery-smoke, 
With many a desperate stroke, 
The Russian line they broke; 
Then they rode back, but not— 
Not the Six Hundred ! 

7. Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 


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Cannon behind them, 

Toll eyed and thundered. 

8. Stormed at with shot and shell, 

While horse and hero fell, 

Those that had fought so well, 

Came from the jaws of Death, 

Back from the mouth of hell, 

All that was left of them— 

Left of Six Hundred! 

9. When can their glory fade ? 

Oh, the wild charge they made! 

All the world wondered. 

Honor the charge they made! 

Honor the Light Brigade— 

Noble Six Hundred! 

Alfred Tennyson. 


For Preparation.—I. “ Balaklava ”— find it on the map of the Black 
Sea. When was this “ charge ” ? What nations were ranged against the 
Russians ? What military object had they in capturing Sebastopol ? Who 
was “ Nolan ” ? Who had “ blundered ” ? 

II. League (leeg), vSl'-leyed (-led), dis-mayed', val'-ley, sa'-ber§. 

III. Explain meaning given by rs in theirs; why the change of y to i; 
—why fought instead of fight. 

IV. Explain “ light brigade ” ;—“ they broke the Russian line ; ”—“half 
a league.” Correct “ Cannon to right of ’em.” 

V. “ Charging an army ”—why a whole army ? (They rode, unsupported, 

into the ranks of the enemy, and thus exposed themselves to the attack of 
the entire Russian army. See LXVI., § 2.) “ Jaws of Death ” (personifi¬ 

cation). Mark the feet in the 1st stanza. Does the rhythm seem ap¬ 
propriate for the description of galloping horses? What passages de¬ 
scribe well the soldiers’ obedience to command? What moral traits did 
the soldiers of the Light Brigade exhibit ? What nation is proud of their 
deed? 



FIFTH READER. 


193 


LXVI.—THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 

1. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective 
regiment, according to the numbers of Continental armies, 
and yet it was more than we could spare. As they 
rushed toward the front, the Russians opened on them 
from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with volleys 
of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glit¬ 
tering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor 
of war. 

2. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our 
senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to 
charge an army in position! Alas! it was but too true. 
Their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed 
was it removed from its so-called better part—discre¬ 
tion. 

3. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace 
as they closed toward the enemy. A more fearful spec¬ 
tacle was never witnessed than by those who beheld these 
heroes rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of 
twelve hundred yards the whole line of the enemy belched 
forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, 
through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was 
marked by instant gaps in our rank£, by dead men and 
horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the 
plain. 

4. The first line is broken!—it is joined by the second ! 
—they never halt, or check their speed an instant. With 
diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which 
the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy— 
with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with 
a cheer which was many a noble fellow’s death-cry, they 
flew into the smoke of the batteries but, ere they were 


194 


FIFTH HEADER. 


lost from view, the plain was strewed with their bodies, 
and with the carcasses of horses. 

5. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the bat¬ 
teries on the hills on both sides, as w r ell as to a direct fire 
of musketry. Through the clouds of smoke w r e could see 
their sabers flashing as they rode up to the guns and 
dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they 
stood. 

6. To our delight, we saw them returning after break¬ 
ing through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering 
them like chaff, when the flank-fire of the battery on the 
hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. 
Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying toward us 
told the sad tale. Demigods could not have done what 
they had failed to do. 

7. At the very moment when they were about to re¬ 
treat, an enormous mass of lancers was hurled on their 
flank. Colonel Shewell, of the Eighth Hussars, saw the 
danger, and rode his few men straight at them, cutting 
his way through with fearful loss. The other regiments 
turned, and engaged in a desperate encounter. With 
courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking 
their way through the columns which enveloped them, 
when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel 
in the modern warfare of civilized nations. 

8. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry 
passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cav¬ 
alry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over 
them; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, 
the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and 
canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, ming¬ 
ling friend and foe in one common ruin! It was as much 
as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to cover the retreat 


FIFTH READER. 


195 


of the miserable remnants of the hand of heroes as they 
returned to the place they had so lately quitted. At thirty- 
live minutes past eleven not a British soldier, except the 
dead and dying, was left in front of the Russian guns. 

W. H. Russell. 


For Preparation. —I. W. H. Russell (Correspondent of London Times). 
At what time of day do you infer this contest took place ? (§ 8.) 

II. Re-doubt' (-dout'), spl&n'-dor, be-lieve', wound'-ed (woond'-), 
strewed (strud), ob'-lique' (-leek'), sa'-berg, straight (strat), par'-al-lel. 

III. “ So-called ” (explain use of hyphen). Explain use of dash before 
“ discretion ” (2). 

IV. Regiment, demigods, atrocity, difference between “bodies” and 
“ carcasses,” miscreants, “ grape and canister.” 

V. “ More than we could spare ”—for this purpose, or for death ? Why 
“ Alas! ” (2) ? For a newspaper correspondent’s article, what do you think 
of its style? Rearrange the first sentence of 6th paragraph, so as to 
make it perfectly clear who were swept down by the “ flank fire,” and also 
make the sentence more forcible through contrasted clauses. Can you find 
any statements or comparisons which are exaggerated for effect ? 


LX V 11 .—WINTER. 

1. Orphan Hours, the Year is dead ! 

Come and sigh! come and weep! 
Merry Hours, smile instead, 

For the Year is hut asleep. 

See! it smiles as it is sleeping, 
Mocking your untimely weeping. 

2. As an earthquake rocks a corse 

In its coffin in the clay, 

So white Winter, that rough nurse, 
Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day. 
Solemn Hours, wail aloud 
For your mother in her shroud ! 




196 


FIFTH READER. 


3. As the wild air stirs and sways 

The tree-swung cradle of a child, 

So the breath of these rude Days 
Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, 
Trembling Hours; she will arise 
With new love within her eyes. 

4. January gray is here, 

Like a sexton by her grave ; 

February bears the bier; 

March with grief doth howl and rave; 

And April weeps ; but, oh, ye Hours! 

Follow with May’s fairest flowers. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley. 


For Preparation. —I. Separate the above piece into antiphonic stanzas 
representing two voices alternating: the one mourning, the other rejoicing. 
Meaning of antiphonic (voices responding to each other). 

II. Or'-phan, sigh (si), sSl'-emn (-em), roiigh (ruf), a-loud'. 

III. Separate the lines of the 1st stanza into feet, marking the accent. 

Explain est , and s, in “ May’s fairest flowers ” ? 

IY. Untimely, mocking, wail, shroud, corse, sexton, bier. 

Y. “ Hours ” (personified. The Greeks and Homans represented the 
“ Hours ” as a train of maidens, twelve in number). In what sense can 
March be said to “ howl and rave,” and April to “ weep ” ? (March with 
winds, April with showers.) Point out the other personifications. 


LXVIII.—THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 

1. It is probable that the Mound-Builders did not oc¬ 
cupy this country till long after the last mammoth was 
slain. They never saw the mammoth, we may be sure, 
or else they would have carved or painted its likeness, as 
they did those of the birds and beasts they knew. 



FIFTH HEADER. 


197 


2. They did not make, unfortunately, distinct pictures 
of themselves, so that we do not know what they looked 
like. And as they wrote no hooks, we do not know what 
language they spoke. The most we know of them is 
what we learn from certain great mounds of earth they 
built. From these great works they derive their name. 

3. One of the most remarkable of these mounds is to 
be seen in Adams County, Ohio. It represents a snake 
a thousand feet long and five feet thick, lying along a 
bluff that rises above a stream. You can trace all the 
curves and outlines of the snake, ending in a tail with a 
triple coil. In the open mouth something in the shape 
of an egg seems to .be held; and this egg-shaped mound 
is one hundred and sixty feet long. 

4. Other mounds have other shapes. Some are like 
animals, and some like men. Some are earth-works, or 
fortifications, inclosing in some cases one or two acres, 
and in others four hundred acres. In some places there 
are many small mounds, arranged in a straight line, at 
distances nearly equal, and extending many miles. In 
others there are single mounds sixty or ninety feet high, 
with steps cut in the earth upon one side, leading to the 
top, which is flat, and includes from one to five acres of 
ground. 

5. These mounds are scattered all down the valley of 
the Mississippi and along many of its tributary streams. 
There are thousands of them in the single State of Ohio. 
They are not built of earth alone, for some show brick¬ 
work and stone-work here and there; yet earth is always 
the chief material. Some have chambers within, and the 
remains of wooden walls. Sometimes charred wood is 
found on top, as if fires had been kindled there. This is 


198 


FIFTH READER. 


an important fact, since it seems to show that the higher 
mounds were built for purposes of worship. 

6. These Mound-Builders must have been in some 
ways well advanced in civilization. Their earthworks 
show more or less of engineering skill. In figure they 
show the square, the circle, the octagon, the ellipse ; and 
sometimes all these are combined in one series of works. 
The circle is always a true circle, the square a true square; 
and there are many squares that measure exactly one 
thousand and eighty feet on a side; and this shows that 
the builders had some definite standard of measure¬ 
ment. 

7. Besides, there have been found in these mounds 
many tools and ornaments, made of copper, silver, and 
valuable stones. There are axes, chisels, knives, brace¬ 
lets, and beads; there are pieces of thread and of cloth, 
and gracefully-ornamented vases of pottery. The Mound- 
Builders also knew how to model in clay a variety of 
objects, such as birds, quadrupeds, and human faces. 
They practised farming, though they had no domestic 
animals to help them. 

8. As they had no horses, nor oxen, nor carts, all the 
vast amount of earth required for the mounds must have 
been carried in baskets, or skins. This shows that they 
must have been very numerous, or they never could have 
attempted so much. 

9. They mined for copper near Lake Superior. In one 
of their mines, long since deserted, there was found, a few 
years ago, a mass of copper weighing nearly six tons, part¬ 
ly raised from the bottom, and supported on wooden logs, 
now nearly decayed. It was evidently to be raised to the 
surface, nearly thirty feet above. The stone and copper 


FIFTH READER. 


199 


tools of the miners were found lying about, as if the men 
had just gone away. 

10. When did these Mound-Builders live \ There is 
one sure proof that they lived very long ago. At the 
mouth of the mine mentioned above, there are trees about 
four hundred years old growing on earth that was thrown 
out in digging the mine. Of course, the mine is older 
than the trees. On a mound in Ohio, there are trees 
eight hundred years old. Nobody knows how much older 
the mounds are. This mysterious race may therefore have 
built these great works more than a thousand years ago. 

11. Who were the Mound-Builders ? It does not seem 
at all likely that they were the ancestors of our present 
American Indians. They differ greatly in habits, and 
most of our Indian tribes show nothing of the skill and 
industry required for constructing great works. Per¬ 
haps they came from Asia, or were descendants of Asiat¬ 
ics accidentally cast on the American shore. Japanese 
vessels are sometimes driven across the Pacific and 
wrecked upon our western coast. This might have hap¬ 
pened a thousand years ago. But we know neither 
whence the Mound-Builders came nor whither they 
went. We only know that they came, and built won¬ 
derful works, and made way for another race, of whose 
origin we know almost as little. 

T. W. Higginson {adapted). 


For Preparation. — I. In what part of Ohio is Adams County ? Have 
you read Higginson’s “ Young Folks’ History of the United States ” ? 

II. Lan'-guage, tnp'-le (trip'l), m$d'-el, en-gi-neer'-ing, vas'-e§. 

III. “ Brick-work.” Correct “ painted its likeness.” Wrote, write, writ¬ 
ten—explain these forms ;—en in oxen. 

IV. Mammoth, bluff, coil, fortifications, tributary, octagon, ellipse, stand¬ 
ard, ornaments, quadrupeds, ruined, ancestors, origin. 



200 


FIFTH READER . 


Y. Serpent-worship existed once throughout a large part of the Eastern 
Continent; it is therefore not strange to find it in America. (3) How do 
you think they know that the Mound-Builders had no horses or carts ? (By 
the absence of the bones of the horse, as well as traces of wheels pre¬ 
served in the mounds. Even so fragile a thing as a basket or a piece of 
cloth may be preserved for ages under a pile of rubbish, especially where 
there has been a fire. In Europe such things have been found; also frag¬ 
ments of horn with rude pictures carved on them by the “prehistoric” in¬ 
habitants, and indicating the appearance of their wild animals—the mam¬ 
moth, for instance.) (9) Would copper be esteemed a good material in 
our time for axes, chisels, and other sharp instruments ? (The Mound- 
Builder possessed the secret of hardening copper, not now known.) 


LXIX.—THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 

1. Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, 

Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain ; 
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 

And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed: 
Dear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
ITow often have I loitered o’er thy green, 

Where humble happiness endeared each scene! 

2. How often have I paused on every charm— 

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 

The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 

The decent church that topped the neighboring 
hill, 

The liawthorn-busli, with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made! 

3. How often have I blest the coming day, 

When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 

And all the village train, from labor free, 

Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree, 



FIFTH READER. 


20 


While many a pastime circled in the shade, 

The young contending as the old surveyed; 

And many a gambol frolicked o’er the ground, 

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round. 

4. And still, as each repeated pleasure tired, 
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired; 

The dancing pair, that simply sought renown 
By holding out to tire each other down ; 

The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face, 

While secret laughter tittered round the place; 

The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love, 

The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove. 

5. These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like 

these, 

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please: 
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed: 
These were thy charms—but all these charms are 
fled. 

Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, 

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; 
Amid thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen, 

And desolation saddens all thy green ; 

One only master grasps the whole domain, 

And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 

6. No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 

But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way; 
Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; 

Amid thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 

And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; 

Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 

And the long grass o’ertops the mouldering wall; 


202 FIFTH READER. 

And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand, 
Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

7. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, 

A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 

But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, 

When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 

A time there was, ere England’s griefs began, 

When every rood of ground maintained its man ; 
For him, light labor spread her wholesome store, 
Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; 

His best companions, innocence and health; 

And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

8. But times are altered : trade’s unfeeling train 
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain; 

Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, 
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose, 

And every want to opulence allied, 

And every pang that folly pays to pride. 

Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 

Those calm desires that asked but little room, 

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, 
Lived in each look and brightened all the green; 
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, 

And rural mirth and manners are no more. 

9. Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening’s close, 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. 

There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 

The mingled notes came softened from below: 

The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung; 

The sober herd that lowed to meet their young.; 


FIFTH READER . 


203 


The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool; 

The playful children just let loose from school; 

The watch-dog’s voice that bayed the whispering wind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind— 
These, all in sweet confusion, sought the shade, 

And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 

10. But now the sounds of population fail; 

]STo cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale; 

No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, 

For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 

All but yon widowed, solitary thing, 

That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; 

She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 

To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 

To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, 

To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn- 
She, only, left of all the harmless train, 

The sad historian of the pensive plain. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 


For Preparation. —I. Where was “ Auburn” ? (The village of Lishoy, 
or Lissoy, in Westmeath County, Ireland, six miles north of Athlone.) 
Whose work was its destruction ? (“ General Napier turned all of his ten¬ 

ants out of their farms, that he might inclose them in his own private do¬ 
main.” See note to Chapter XXVIII. of Irving’s “Goldsmith.”) Who 
afterward restored it, and why? (Captain Hogan, its present possessor, 
fired with an antiquarian spirit, has restored everything so as to correspond 
exactly to Goldsmith’s description.) Where is the hawthorn-bush found ? 
“ The hollow-sounding bittern.” 

II. NTeigh'-bor-mg (na'bur-), sur-veyed' (-vad'), sleights (slits), bu§'~y 
(biz'y), ty'-rant’s, s£dg'-e§ (sej'-), s5ft'-ened (sofnd). 

III. Explain cst in loveliest; why not lovelyest ? ( Y would have a con¬ 
sonant sound.) What other ways of spelling blest (3) and past (9) ? 

IV. Swain, loitered, mistrustless, tillage, prey, peasantry, usurp, dispos¬ 
sess, hamlet, unwieldy, opulence, allied, “every pang that folly pays to 
pride,” rural, fluctuate, pensive, “ decent ” (i. e., becoming) church. 



204 


FIFTH READER. 


V. What are “ lingering blooms ” ? What contrast does the poet paint 
between Auburn as it was and as it is ? To what does he attribute the 
change ? What occasioned the titter of “ secret laughter ” (4) ? Trans¬ 
pose into prose (adding words of your own where needed) the 7th stanza, to 
“ supplied.” Note the rhyme (9) “ wind ” and “ mind.” Name other pieces 
in which the nightingale (9) is spoken of. (It is not found in Ireland.) 


LXX.—THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 

1. Now they began to go down the hill into the Val¬ 
ley of Humiliation. It was a steep hill, and the way was 
slippery; but they were very careful, so they got down 
pretty well. When they were down in the valley, Piety 
said to Christiana: “ This is the place where Christian, 
your husband, met with that foul fiend Apollyon, and 
where they had that dreadful fight that they had. I know 
you cannot but have heard thereof. But be of good 
courage: as long as you have here Mr. Greatheart to be 
your guide and conductor, we hope you will fare the bet¬ 
ter.” So, when these two had committed the pilgrims 
unto the conduct of their guide, he went forward, and 
they went after. 

2 . Then said Mr. Greatheart: “ We need not be so 
afraid of this valley, for here is nothing to hurt us, un¬ 
less we procure it ourselves. ’Tis true, Christian did here 
meet with Apollyon, with whom he also had a sore com¬ 
bat ; but that fray was the fruit of those slips that he got 
in his going down the hill; for they that get slips there 
must look for combats here. And hence it is that this 
valley has got so hard a name; for the common people, 
when they hear that some frightful thing has befallen 
such a one in such a place, are of opinion that that place 
is haunted with some foul fiend or evil spirit; when, alas! 



FIFTH READER. 


205 


it is for the fruit of their own doings that such things do 
befall them there. 

3. “ This Yalley of Humiliation is of itself as fruitful 
a place as any the crow flies over; and I am persuaded, if 
we could hit upon it, we might find somewhere here¬ 
abouts something that might give us an account why 
Christian was so hardly beset in this place.” 

4. Then said James to his mother: “ Lo! yonder stands 
a pillar, and it looks as if something was written thereon ; 
let us go and see what it is.” So they went, and found 
there written, “Let Christian’s slip, before he came 
hither, and the battles that he met with in this place, be 
a warning to those that come after.” “ Lo! ” said their 
guide, “ did not I tell you that there was something here¬ 
abouts that would give intimation of the reason why 
Christian was so hard beset in this place ? ” Then turn¬ 
ing himself to Christiana, he said: “Ho disparagement to 
Christian more than to many others whose hap and lot 
it was; for it is easier going up than down this hill; and 
that can be said but of a few hills in all these parts of the 
world. But we will leave the good man; he is.at rest. 
He also had a brave victory over his enemy. Let Him 
grant, that dwelleth above, that we fare no worse when 
we come to be tried, than he! 

5. “But we will come again to this Yalley of Humili¬ 
ation. It is the best and most fruitful piece of ground 
in all these parts. It is fat ground, and, as you see, con¬ 
sisted much in meadows ; and if a man was to come here 
in summer-time, as we do now, if he knew not anything 
before thereof, and if he also delighted himself in the sight 
of his eyes, he might see that which would be delightful 
to him. Behold how green this valley is ! also how beau- 


206 


FIFTH RFADFIL. 


tiful with lilies! I have known many laboring men that 
have got good estates in this Valley of Humiliation; ‘ for 
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the hum¬ 
ble; 5 for, indeed, it is a very fruitful soil, and doth 
bring forth by handfuls. Some also have wished that 
the next way to their Father’s house were here, that 
they might be troubled no more with either hills or 
mountains to go over; but the way is the way, and 
there is an end. 55 

6. How, as they were going along and talking, they 
espied a boy feeding his father’s sheep. The boy was in 
very mean clothes, but of a fresh and well-favored coun¬ 
tenance, and as he sat by himself he sang. “ Hark! 55 
said Mr. Greatheart, “ to what the shepherd’s boy saith; ” 
and so they hearkened, and he said: 

“ He that is down, needs fear no fall; 

He that is low, no pride ; 

He that is humble, ever shall 
Have God to be his guide. 

I am content with what I have, 

Little be it, or much ; 

And, Lord, contentment still I crave, 

Because thou savest such. 

Fullness to such a burden is, 

That go on pilgrimage ; 

Here little, and hereafter bliss, 

Is best from age to age.” 

7. Then said their guide: “ Do you hear him ? I will 
dare to say this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more 
of that herb called heart’s-ease in his bosom, than he that 
is clad in silk and velvet! But we will proceed in our 
discourse.” 


John Bunyan. 


FIFTH READER. 


207 


For Preparation. —I. Have you read the “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” ? (This 
is from “The Fifth Stage” of the Second Part.) 

II. A-p61'-ly-6n, lil'-ie§, slip'-per-y, fiend (fend), -ebm'-bafc, dis-par'- 
age-ment. 

III. On in “ thereon ; ” give a list of words formed in the same way— 
tliere-to , there-at , etc. 

IV. Humiliation, “ fruitful a place as the crow flies over,” well-favored. 

V. In the poem (6), see if you can find the thoughts of the prose pas¬ 

sages before it, which are wrapped up in a story. Why is the descent steep 
toward humility (humbleness) ? Do most people get down the hill of Pride 
without a fall ? Did you ever hear of any people who would laugh at one 
whose pride had caused him to slip and fall ? (Think of Apollyon.) Is humil¬ 
ity profitable to the soul ? Name some of its good results ? “ Shepherd’s 

boy ”—was it David ? 


LXXI.—THE VILLAGE PREACHER. 

1. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild, 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 

The village preacher’s modest mansion rose. 

A man he was to all the country dear, 

And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 

2. Remote from towns he ran his goodly race, 

Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; 
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, 

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 

More bent to raise the wretched, than to rise. 

3. His house was known to all the vagrant train ; 

He chid their wand’rings, hut relieved their pain ; 

The long-remembered beggar was his guest,. 

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; 

The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 

Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed ; 



208 


FIFTH READER. 


The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, 

Wept o’er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were 
won. 

4. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe; 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 

And e’en his failings leaned to virtue’s side. 

5. But in his duty prompt at every call, 

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; 
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries, 

To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 

He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 

Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

6. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 

And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, 

The reverend champion stood. At his control, 

Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; 

Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last falt’ring accents whisper’d praise. 

7. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 

His looks adorned the venerable place ; 

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 

And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 

The service past, around the pious man, 

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; 

Even children followed with endearing wile, 

And plucked his gown, to share the good man’s smile. 


FIFTH READER. 


209 


8. His ready smile a parent’s warmth exprest; 

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; 

To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 


For Preparation.— I. Have you read “ Dr. Primrose in Prison ” ? (IX.) 
Do you see any resemblance in character between Dr. Primrose and “ The 
Village Preacher”? (Henry Goldsmith, brother of the poet, occupied the 
parsonage at Lissoy, and is doubtless the original of the “ Vicar,” and of 
the “ Village Preacher.”) 

II. De-s^nd'-ing, beg'-gar, woe, mid'-way. 

III. E’er, wished, remembered. Difference between bade and bid? — weep 
and wept?—win and won? 

IV. Copse, forty pounds, vagrant, scan, accents, “ ran his goodly race ” 
—note the quotation of this by the author in his “ Elegy on a Mad Dog.” 

V. Explain, “His pity gave ere charity began.” Which is a higher 
virtue—pity, or charity ? How could “ his failings lean to virtue’s side ” ? 
Make a list of the positions in which the “ village preacher ” is portrayed 
((a) at church, (b) at the bedside of the dying, (c) as kind host, etc.). Is 
the metaphor of the “ tall cliff ” accurately expressive of the character por¬ 
trayed in the preacher ? 


LXXII.—HOW TO RENDER HUMOROUS IDEAS. 

Under this head we include good-natured wit, raillery, 
pleasantry, jesting, punning, etc. They require the same 
“compound slide” (or “circumflex,” as it is often called), 
with smoother stress than belongs to sarcasm and scorn. 

As the spirit of this class is agreeable, the com¬ 
pound stress used must be free from all offensive abrupt¬ 
ness. 




210 


FIFTH HEADER. 


EXAMPLE OF WIT AND RAILLERY. 

Benedick and Beatrice are mntnal friends, admirers, 
and finally lovers, but wittily affect to scorn love, and 
marriage, and each other. 

Beatrice —I pray you, is seignior Montanto' * re¬ 
turned from the wars, or no'? How many hath he 
hilled and eaten * in these wars ? But how many hath 
he killed*? For, indeed, 1* promised to eat* all of his 
hilling. 

Messenger —He hath done good service, lady, in these 
wars. 

Beat. —You had musty victual , and he hath holp to 
eat* it: he is a very valiant ! v TRENCHER A -man; he hath an 
excellent stomach*. 

Mess. —And a good soldier', too, lady. 

Beat. —And a good soldier to a lady'; but what is he 
to a lord* ? 

Mess. —A lord' to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed 
with all honorable virtues'. 

Beat. —It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed* 
man : but for the stuffing^ — Well, we are all mortal! 
Who is his companion' now ? He hath every month' a 
new a sworn brother*. 

Mess. —Is it possible ? 

Beat. —Very easily possible: he wears his faith , v but 
as the fashion of his hat*; it ever changes* with tiie next 
Mock*. 

Mess. —I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your' 
books. 

Beat. — No ! an he were 1 , I would burn' my study'. 


* A name of ridicule for Benedick. 


FIFTH READER. 


211 


[Beatrice and Benedick.] 

Beatrice —I wonder that you will still be talking\ 
seignior Benedick; nobody marks' you. 

Benedick — Whatf, my dear lady Disdain* !—are you- 
yet-limng' f 

Beat .—Is it possible Disdain should die*, while she 
hath such meet' food to feed it as seignior Benedickt f 
Courtesy* itself must convert to disdain , if you v come in 
her presence. 

Bene. —Then is courtesy a turncoat': but it is certain, 
I am loved of all ladies, only you' excepted; and I would 
I could find in my heart that I had not a hard' heart; 
for, truly, I v love none. 

Beat. —A dear happiness* to women'; they would else 
have been troubled with a pernicious a suitor. I thank 
God, and my cold v blood , I v am of your humor for that*; 
I had rather hear my dog* bark at a crow* , than a man* 
swear he loves* me. 

Bene. —God keep your ladyship still* in that* mind! 
so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate 
scratched' face'. 

Beat. — Scratching could not make it worse*, an ’twere 
such a face as yours' were. 

Bene. —Well, you are a rare parrot*-iz&Qkvox. 

Beat. —A bird* of my' tongue is better than a beast a 
of yours'. 

Bene. —I would my horse a had the speed* of your 
tongue / and so good a continuer*. 

Beat. —You always end with a jadds* trick; I know' 
you of old*. 

(From “ Much Ado about NothingShakespeare.) 


212 


FIFTH READER. 


LXXIII.—THE GRAVE. 

1. There is a calm for those who weep, 

A rest for weary pilgrims found ; 

They softly lie, and sweetly sleep, 

Low in the ground. 

2. The storm that wrecks the winter sky, 

No more disturbs their deep repose 
Than summer evening’s latest sigh, 

That shuts the rose. 

3. I long to lay this painful head 

And aching heart beneath the soil— 

To slumber in that dreamless bed 

From all my toil. 

4. For misery stole me at my birth, 

And cast me helpless on the wild. 

I perish—oh, my mother Earth, 

Take home thy child! 

5. On thy dear lap these limbs reclined, 

Shall gently moulder into thee; 

Nor leave one wretched trace behind 
Resembling me. 

6. Hark! a strange sound affrights mine ear; 

My pulse, my brain runs wild! I rave ! 
Ah, who art thou whose voice I hear ? 

—“ I am the Grave! 

7. “ The Grave, that never spoke before, 

Hath found, at last, a tongue to chide : 


FIFTH READER. 


213 


O listen! I will speak no more— 

Be silent, pride! 

8. “ Art thou a wretch, of hope forlorn, 

The victim of consuming care ? 

Is thy distracted conscience torn 

By fell despair ? 

9. “ Do foul misdeeds of former times 

Wring with remorse thy guilty breast? 

And ghosts of unforgiven crimes 

Murder thy rest ? 

10. “ Lashed by the furies of the mind, 

From wrath and vengeance wouldst thou flee? 

Ah ! think not, hope not, fool, to find 
A friend in me! 

11. “I charge thee, live—repent and pray! 

In dust thine infamy deplore ! 

There yet is mercy. Go thy way, 

And sin no more. 

12. “ Whate’er thy lot, whoe’er thou be, 

Confess thy folly—kiss the rod, 

And in thy chastening sorrows see 

The hand of God. 

13. “ A bruised reed He will not break: 

Afflictions all his children feel; 

He wounds them for His mercy’s sake— 

He wounds to heal! 

14. “Humbled beneath His mighty hand, 

Prostrate His providence adore. 


214 


FIFTH READER. 


’Tis done!—Arise! He bids thee stand, 

To fall no more. 

15. “ How, traveler in the vale of tears, 

To realms of everlasting light, 

Through Time’s dark wilderness of years, 
Pursue thy flight! 

16. “ There is a calm for those who weep, 

A rest for weary pilgrims found; 

And while the mouldering ashes sleep 
Low in the ground, 

17. “ The soul, of origin divine, 

God’s glorious image, freed from clay, 

In heaven’s eternal sphere shall shine, 

A star of day! 

18. “ The sun is but a spark of fire, 

A transient meteor in the sky: 

The soul, immortal as its sire, 

Shall never die.” 

James Montgomery. 


For Preparation. —I. Nearly one-half of the verses of the poem are 
omitted here. Compare this poem with “ How Sleep the Brave ? ” (XII.), of 
Collins, and “ Virtue ” (XLV.), of Herbert. 

II. Wrecks (rfiks), chas'-ten-ing (chas'n-ing), trav'-el-er, tr&n'-sient 
(-shent), bruised (bruzd), pur-stie', 5r'-i-gm. 

III. Meaning of un and en in unforgiven ?—of d in freed ? 

IV. Remorse, “ furies of the mind,” meteor. 

V. Explain the expression, “ storm that wrecks the winter sky ” (that 
strews the sky with broken clouds—cloud-wracks; as if he had said 
wracked—covered with wracks—the sky). (In the first six verses the 
heart-sick mourner expresses his weak pining for rest, and is checked by the 
apparition of the Grave itself, who speaks in the last verses.) Who is re¬ 
ferred to as “ its sire” (18) ? What contrast in the last stanza? 



FIFTH READER. 


218 


LXXIV.—THE MURDERER CANNOT KEEP HIS 
SECRET. 

1. I very much regret that it should have been thought 
necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here to 
“ hurry you against the law, and beyond the evidence.” 
I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much 
respect for my own character, to attempt either; and 
were I to make such an attempt, I am sure that, in this 
court, nothing can be carried against the law, and that 
gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are not, by 
any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. 

2. Though I could well have wished to shun this oc¬ 
casion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my profes¬ 
sional assistance when it is supposed that I might be in 
some degree useful in investigating and discovering the 
truth respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has 
seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as on every other 
citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light 
the perpetrators of this crime. 

3. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I 
cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him 
the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to 
be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this 
deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how 
much soever it may be, which is cast on those wdio feel 
and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part 
in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight 
assassination, may be brought to answer for their enor¬ 
mous crime at the bar of public justice. 

4. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In 
some respects, it has hardly a precedent anywhere; cer¬ 
tainly none in our ISTew-England history. This bloody 


216 


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drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. 
The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temp¬ 
tation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it 
before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed 
to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and 
deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making 
murder. It was all “hire and salary, not revenge.” It 
was the weighing of money against life; the counting 
out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of 
blood. 

5. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in 
his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim 
of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly here is a 
new lesson for painters and poets! Whoever shall here¬ 
after draw the portrait of a murder, if he will show it as 
it has been exhibited in one example, where such ex¬ 
ample was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom 
of our New-England society, let him not give it the grim, 
visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face 
black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting 
livid fires of malice. 

6. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, 
bloodless demon ; a picture in repose, rather than in 
action; not so much an example of human nature in its 
depravity and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal 
nature, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development 
of his character. 

7. The deed was executed with a degree of self-pos¬ 
session and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which 
it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evi¬ 
dence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep 
had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his 
roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet— 


FIFTH READER. 


217 


the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their 
soft but strong embrace. 

8. The assassin enters, through the window already 
prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless 
foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; 
he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door 
of the chamber; of this he moves the lock, by soft and 
continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges; and he 
enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room 
was uncommonly open to the admission of light. 

9. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from 
the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the 
gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to 
strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, 
without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep 
to the repose of death! It is the assassin’s purpose to 
make sure work, and he yet plies the dagger, though it 
was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of 
the bludgeon. 

10. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not 
fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the 
wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he ex¬ 
plores the wrist for the pulse! he feels it, and ascertains 
that it beats no longer! It is accomplished—the deed is 
done! He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, 
passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has 
done the murder; no eye has seen him; no ear has heard 
him ; the secret is his own, and he is safe ! 

11. Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake! 
Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation 
of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can 
bestow it, and say it is safe! Hot to speak of that Eye 

10 


218 


FIFTH READER. 


which glances through all disguises, and beholds every¬ 
thing as in the splendor of noon ; such secrets of guilt 
are never safe from detection, even by man. True it is, 
generally speaking, that “ murder will out.” 

12. True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and 
doth so govern things, that those who break the great law 
of Heaven, by shedding man’s blood, seldom succeed in 
avoiding discovery; especially, in a case exciting so much 
attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or 
later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every 
man, every thing, every circumstance connected with the 
time and place; a thousand ears catch-every whisper; a 
thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, 
shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest 
circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the 
guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. 

13. It is false to itself—or, rather, it feels an irresisti¬ 
ble impulse of conscience to be true to itself; it labors 
under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do 
with it. The human heart was not made for the resi¬ 
dence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by 
a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or 
man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy 
or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret 
which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; 
and, like the evil spirits of which w^e read, it overcomes 
him, and leads him whithersoever it will. 

14. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his 
throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole 
world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost 
hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. 
It has become his master; it betrays his discretion; it 
breaks down his courage; it conquers his prudence. 


FIFTH READER. 


219 


When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, 
and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal 
secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. 
It must be confessed: it will be confessed. There is no 
refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is con¬ 
fession ! Daniel Webster. 


For Preparation.—I. Webster’s unsurpassed skill as a criminal lawyer 
appeared in the trial of Knapp, at Salem (1830), for the murder of Joseph 
White. The extract here given is from his opening address to the jury. 
“ Suicide is confession ”—Crowninshield, the actual murderer, committed 
suicide in prison. “ Hurry you against the law,” etc.—the point made by 
the opposing counsel. Note the quiet force with which Webster disposes 
of this; his respect for his own character, and his confidence in the court. 
The courtesy of Webster’s manner is consummate. Note the words, “ should 
have been thought necessary ”—almost carried into irony. 

II. S^ene, em-bra<?e', bliid'-geon (-jun), a'-ged, de-stroyed', p5n'- 
iard (-yard), pulse, as-£er-tain§', nei'-ther (ne'-), guilt (gilt), -eon'-science 
(-shens), dis-cre'-tion (-kresh'un), -eour'-age (kur'ej). 

III. Change the following so as to express more than one : life, his, eye, 
man, that, discovery. 

IV. Evidence, paces, obvious, preyed, impulse, torment, vulture, pru¬ 
dence, suspicious, fatal, suicide, assassin. 

V. What is the effect of showing “ self-possession and steadiness ” (7) 
in the deed of a murderer upon the degree of punishment which is to be de¬ 
creed him? Write out the thoughts of the 12th paragraph in your own 
words, and compare with the original. (This passage is worthy of being 
expanded into an essay by you, for it contains a deep insight into the method 
by which society unconsciously combines the partial efforts of individuals 
into a whole that is miraculous in its completeness and efficiency.) 


LXXV.—THE SHIPWRECK. 

1. At half-past eight o’clock, booms, hen-coops, spars, 
And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose, 
That still could keep afloat the struggling tars, 

For yet they strove, although of no great use. 




220 


FIFTH READER. 


There was no light in heaven bnt a few stars; 

The boats put ofi*, o’ercrowded with their crews; 
She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, 

And going down head-foremost—sunk, in short. 

2. Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell; 

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave; 
Then some leaped overboard, with dreadful yell, 

As eager to anticipate their grave; 

And the sea yawned round her like a hell, 

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, 
Like one who grapples with his enemy, 

And strives to strangle him before he die. 

3. And first a universal shriek there rushed, 

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, 

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 
Of billows; but at intervals there gushed, 
Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 

A solitary shriek—the bubbling cry 
Of some strong swimmer in his agony. 

Lord Byron . 

For Preparation.— I. Byron here paints the horrors of shipwreck. 
Have you read his “Waterloo”? (LXXXVIII.) Note the excellence of 
Byron in describing scenes of moral suffering and dread; consider this in 
connection with his “Misanthropy” (see VI.). 

II. Shrieked (shreekd), an-tlg'-i-pate, whirl'-ing (hwiri'-). 

III. Overboard, yawned, rushed. Describe the metre of this poem. 

IV. Chance, toss, remorseless, intervals, convulsive, crash, “gave a 
heel ” (leaned over), “ lurch to port ” (inclined to the left). 

V. In the last line of the 1st stanza, what trace of indecorous feeling ? 
(The description that precedes uses the technical language of sailors, as if 
in a sort of defiance of poetic taste, and Byron sums up its verbiage by the 
words “ sunk, in short,” to betray his careless state of mind, so unaffected 



FIFTH READER . 


at the solemn nature of the event that he can be facetious with the lan¬ 
guage in which he describes it. In the next two stanzas he throws off this 
lack of earnestness, and is adequate to the subject.) Explain the metaphor, 
“ like one who grapples ” (2). Select the descriptive passages which you 
consider the most admirable. 


LXXVI.—HIDDEN BEAUTIES OF CLASSIC AUTHORS. 

1. The hidden beauties of standard authors break 
upon the mind by surprise. It is like discovering a hid¬ 
den spring in an old jewel. 

2. You take up the book in an idle moment, as you 
have done a thousand times before, perhaps, wondering, 
as you turn over the leaves, what the world finds in it to 
admire, when suddenly, as you read, your fingers press 
close upon the covers, your frame thrills, and the passage 
you have chanced upon chains you like a spell; it is so 
vividly true and beautiful. 

3. Milton’s “ Comus ” flashed upon me in this way. 
I never could read the u Eape of the Lock ” till a friend 
quoted some passages from it during a walk. 

4. I know no more exquisite sensation than this 
warming of the heart to an old author; and it seems to 
me that the most delicious portion of intellectual exist¬ 
ence is the brief period in which, one by one, the great 
minds of old are admitted with all their time-mellowed 
worth to the affections. 

5. With what delight I read, for the first time, the 
“ kind-hearted plays ” of Beaumont and Fletcher! How 
I doted on Burton ! What treasures to me were the 
" Faerie Queene ” and the “ Lyrics ” of Milton ! 

jsr. p. wuiis . 



222 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation.— I. Have you read Milton’s “ Comus ” ?— Pope’s 
“ Rape of the Lock ” ? Did you ever experience the “ surprise ” which the 
author describes, at the discovery of the depth of meaning in a piece of 
literature ? What piece was it ? Who were Beaumont and Fletcher ? (Robert 
Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” is referred to in the next line.) Name 
one of Milton’s “ Lyrics.” (See CXXXVII. and CXXXIX. for two of the 
best.) Who wrote the “Faerie Queene ” ? 

II. Beau'-tie§ (bu'tez), £x'-qui-§ite (-kwi-zit), de-ll'-cious (-ilsh'us), 
trSa§'-ure (trezh'ur), wan'-der-ing. 

III. Change the following words so as to make them have reference to 
more than one: this, is, my, has, its, thy, box, child, man, brother, runs. 

IY. Lyric, vividly, spell, quoted, “ standard authors,” doted. 

Y. What of the aptness of the metaphor “like discovering a hidden 
spring in an old jewel ” ? 


LXXVII.—THE LAUNCH OF THE SHIP. 

1. Then the master, 

With a gesture of command, 

Waved his hand. 

And at the word, 

Loud and sudden there was heard, 

All around them and below, 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 
Knocking away the shores and spurs. 
And see !—she stirs! 

She starts ! she moves ! she seems to feel 
The thrill of life along her keel! 

And, spurning with her foot the ground, 
With one exulting, joyous bound, 

She leaps into the ocean’s arms! 

2. And lo! from the assembled crowd 
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 
That to the ocean seemed to say, 

“ Take her, O Bridegroom, old and gray, 



FIFTH READER. 


223 


Take her to thy protecting arms, 

With all her youth and all her charms !” 

How beautiful she is ! How fair 
She lies within those arms, that press 
Her form with many a soft caress 
Of tenderness and watchful care ! 

Sail forth into the sea, O ship! 

Through wind and wave, right onward steer; 
The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 

Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

3. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 

Humanity, with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 

We know what Master laid thy keel— 

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel— 
Who made each mast and sail and rope; 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat; 

In what a forge, and what a heat, 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 

4. Fear not each sudden sound and shock— 

’Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 

’Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale. 

In spite of rock and tempest’s roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears, 

Are all with thee—are all with thee! 

II. W. Longfellow. 


224 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation. —I. Have you read “ The Building of the Ship ” ? 
(from which these extracts are taken). If you have read Schiller’s “ Song of 
the Bell,” make a comparison of the subjects, and methods of treatment. 

II. GSst'-ure, forge, as-sSm'-bled (-bid), beau'-ti-ful (bu'-), tri- 
hmph'-ant, flap'-ping, ham'-mer§, wrought (rawt), an'-vil§. 

III. Examine the metre, and select one line of each variety of lines 
as a specimen. 

IV. Shores, spurs, “Ship of State,” “anchors of thy hope,” “false 
lights on the shore.” 

V. Collect and arrange the examples of personification and metaphors 
of the piece. 


LXXVIII.—BUILDING THE HOUSE. 

1. Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an ax 
and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest 
to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut 
down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth, 
for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing; 
but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to per¬ 
mit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enter¬ 
prise. The owner of the ax, as he released his hold on 
it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned 
it sharper than I received it. 

2. It was a pleasant hill-side where I worked, covered 
with pine woods, through which I looked out on the 
pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines 
and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond 
was not yet dissolved, though there were some open 
spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with 
water. There were some slight flurries of snow during 
the days that I worked there; but, for the most part, 
when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its 
yellow sand-heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy 



FIFTH READER. 


22B 


atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I 
heard the lark, and pewee, and other birds, already come 
to commence another year with us. 

3. They were pleasant spring-days, in which the win¬ 
ter of man’s discontent was thawing, as well as the earth, 
and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. 
One day, when my ax had come off, and I had cut a 
green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and 
had placed the whole to soak in a pond-hole in order to 
swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, 
and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconven¬ 
ience, as long as I staid there, or more than a quarter of 
an hour—perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out 
of the torpid state. 

4. It appeared to me that, for a like reason, men re¬ 
main in their present low and primitive condition; but 
if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs 
arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher 
and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes 
in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their 
bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to 
thaw them. On the first of April it rained, and melted 
the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very 
foggy, I heard a-stray goose groping about over the pond 
and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. 

5. I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the 
south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, 
down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the low¬ 
est stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven deep, to 
a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any win¬ 
ter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but 
the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps 
its place. It was but two hours’ work. 


226 


FIFTH READER. 


6. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of 
ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth 
for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid 
house in the city is still to be found the cellar, where 
they store their roots as of old, and, long after the super¬ 
structure has disappeared, posterity remark its dent in 
the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the 
entrance of a burrow. 

7. At length, in the beginning of May, with the help 
of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good 
an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, 
I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more 
honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are 
destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier struc¬ 
tures one day. I began to occupy my house on the fourth 
of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the 
boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it 
was perfectly impervious to rain ; but before boarding, I 
laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two 
cart-loads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. 

8. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, 

before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my 
cooking in the meanwhile out-of-doors on the ground, 
early in the morning: which mode, I still think, is in 
some respects more convenient and agreeable than the 
usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, 
I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to 
watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that 
way. In those days when my hands were much em¬ 
ployed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper 
which lay on the ground, my holder, or table-cloth, af¬ 
forded me as much entertainment—in fact, answered the 
same purpose—as the “ Iliad.” Henry D. Thoreau. 


FIFTH HEADER . 


For Preparation. —I. From what is “the winter of man’s discontent” 
partly quoted ? (“ Richard III.”) What country docs the description of 
the surroundings denote ? (woodchuck, sumach, eto.). “ Iliad ”—who wrote 
it ? (The author of this piece has described the every-day affairs and com¬ 
mon sights about his village, in his books, “A Week on the Concord and 
Merrimac Rivers, Walden, etc.”—giving them an air of as much importance 
as Homer gives to the “ Wanderings of Ulysses.”) Refer to the “ Battle of 
the Ants ” (VII.) to get his estimate of human affairs. 

II. Ax, bor'-rowed (-rod), &n'-ter-pri§e, re-leased', hick'-o-rie§, 
di§-§81ved', col'-ored (kui'urd), at'-mos-phere, w£dge <wej), soak (sok), 
striped, m~eon-ven'-ien<?e, ap-peared', ne-££s'-si-ty, high'-er (hi'er), 
$el'-lar, su'-ma«h, po-ta-toe§, pl&a§'-ure (plSzh'ur), a-e-quaint'-ange, 
h8n y -ored (on'urd), raiding, chim'-ney, hoe'-ing, a-gree'-a-ble, -eon- 
ven'-ient, loaf, (lof). 

III. Change, so as to express present time: was, looked, said, went, came. 

IV. Generous, “ apple of his eye,” saturated, flurried, primitive, appar¬ 
ently, torpid, ethereal, previously, numb, inflexible, groping, burrow, “ low¬ 
est stain of vegetation,” temperature, superstructure, disappeared, posterity, 
dent, porch, feather-edged, impervious. 

V. Do you notice any traces of irony in the description of the small 
events of his house-building ? Do you think the author meant it as a satire 
on most literature, as much as to say, “ After all, they write only about the 
life of man, his building, food-raising, etc.; and in this democratic country, 
why is not one man’s life as good as another’s ? Or does the author think 
that all human acts are of epic dignity when honest ? 


LXXIX.—BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. 

1. Break, break, break, 

On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea! 

And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

2. Oh, well for the fisherman’s boy 

That he shouts with his sister at play! 
Oh, well for the sailor-lad 

That he sings in his boat on the bay! 



228 


FIFTH HEADER. 


3. And the stately ships go on, 

To the haven under the hill; 

But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice 'that is still! 

4. Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 

But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me. 

Alfred Tennyson. 

For Preparation.— I. Have you read Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” in 
which he portrays his grief and consolation for the death of his friend Hal- 
lain ? This poem is an expression of the same grief. Compare this with 
the elevation of his “Ode on the Death of Wellington” (CXLIII.), or “The 
Charge of the Light Brigade ” (LXV.). Tennyson is a master of meter, 
and never allows the rules of meter to cramp the expression of his thought. 

II. Break, gray, tongue (tung), a-rl§e', th6ughts (thawts), sail'-or, 
boat, toiich. 

III. Note the meter of the first line as compared with the others. It 
seems as though the poet makes the expression of grief cut off all short— 
unaccented—syllables in that line, and merely use the final accented one— 
break, break, break (see XCVIII., vi.). Note the accented ones in the fol¬ 
lowing lines: cold, stones, sea, mould, tongue, utter, thoughts, arise, me. 
These are the essential words. 

IV. Haven, stately, tender grace. 

V. “ Under the hill.” Does the poet seem to locate himself in view of 

the sea ? What is the pathos—pathetic quality—in the word “ cold ” (gray 
stones) ? What contrast does the presence of shouts from the playing 
children and the song of the sailor-lad suggest to his mind ? (A voice that 
is still.) Also the coming in of the ship (safe return) ? “ Tender grace ” 

(when he touched the vanished hand). Does the poet suggest any conso¬ 
lation ? 


LXXX.—THE PONDS OF CONCORD. 

1. The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, 
though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, 
nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented 




FIFTH READER. 


229 


it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable 
for its depth and purity, as to merit a particular descrip¬ 
tion. It is a clear and deep green well, half a mile long 
and a mile and three-quarters in circumference, and con¬ 
tains about sixty-one and a half acres—a perennial spring 
in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visi¬ 
ble inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evapora¬ 
tion. 

2. The surrounding hills rise abruptly from the water 
to the height of forty to eighty feet, though on the 
southeast and east they attain to about one hundred and 
one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter 
and a third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. 
All our Concord waters have two colors at least, one 
when viewed at a distance, and another, more proper, 
close at hand. The first depends more on the light, and 
follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they ap¬ 
pear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and 
at a great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather 
they are sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, how¬ 
ever, is said to be blue one day and green another, with¬ 
out any perceptible change in the atmosphere. 

3. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being 
covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as 
green as grass. Some consider blue “ to be the color of 
pure water, whether liquid or solid.” But, looking di¬ 
rectly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen 
to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one 
time and green at another, even from the same point of 
view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it par¬ 
takes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill-top it 
reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a 
yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, 


230 


FIFTH READER. 


then a light-green, which gradually deepens to a uniform 
dark-green in the body of the pond. In some lights, 
viewed even from a liill-top, it is of a vivid green next 
the shore. 

4. Some have referred this to the reflection of the 
verdure; but it is equally green there against the rail¬ 
road sand-bank, and in the spring, before the leaves are 
expanded, and it may be simply the result of the pre¬ 
vailing blue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is 
the color of its iris. This is that portion, also, where in 
the spring the ice, being warmed by the heat of the sun 
reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted through 
the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the 
still frozen middle. 

5. Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated 
in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may 
reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is 
more light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance 
of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, 
being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so 
as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and 
indescribable light-blue, such as watered or changeable 
silks and sword-blades suggest, more cerulean than the 
sky itself, alternating with the original dark-green on 
the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but 
muddy in comparison. 

6. It is a vitreous greenish-blue, as I remember it, 
like those patches of the winter sky seen through cloud 
vistas in the west before sundown. Yet a single glass 
of its water held up to the light is as colorless as an 
equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large 
plate of glass will have a green tint, owing, as the mak¬ 
ers say, to its “body,” but a small piece of the same 


FIFTH READER. 


231 


will be colorless. How large a body of Walden water 
would be required to reflect a green tint, I have never 
proved. 

7. The water of our river is black, or a very dark- 
brown, to one looking directly down on it, and, like that 
of most ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it 
a yellowish tinge; but this water is of such crystalline 
purity that the body of the bather appears of an alabaster 
whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are 
magnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous 
effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo. 

Henry D. T/ioreau. 


For Preparation. —I. Walden Pond, near tlie village of Concord, Mass. 
See Thoreau’s “ Battle of the Ants ” (VII.), and “ Ascent of Mount Ktaadn ” 
(XLIV.). Ilave you read any of his books relating to the Maine woods, 
Cape Cod, or Canada ? “ Our river ” (3) (Concord river). “ Fit studies for 

Michael Angelo ”—who is referred to, and what are “ tit studies ” ? (The 
artist attempts a sketch from Nature, either for the sake of practice, or for 
use in a larger work ; this is called a study.) 

II. S§en'-er-y, hum'-ble, s«ale, beau'-ti-ful (bu'-), grand'-eur (-yur), 
fre-quSnt'-ed, a'-cres (-kerz), blue, ag'-i-tat-ed, ap-pear', wSath'-er, at'- 
mos-phere, view (vu), ly'-ing, re-ferred', di§-$erned' (diz-zemd), chiirge'- 
a-ble, erys'-tal-llne. 

III. Correct “It is like them, patches ”; “An single glass of it’s wa¬ 
ters’ are colorless as air.” 

IV. Concern, circumference, perennial, inlet, evaporation, abruptly, 
respectively, exclusively, landscape, gradually, uniform, “ body of the 
pond,” vivid, reflection, verdure, expanded, prevailing, iris, transmitted, 
agitated, “ right angle,” “ divided vision,” reflection, cerulean, alternating, 
original, opposite, comparison, vitreous, vistas, alabaster, magnified, dis¬ 
torted, monstrous. 

V. Why call the lake a “ well ” (1) ? (Because of its depth.) Does 
the author seem to you in earnest in his description of minute details ? 
Do not these details seem trivial ? ( see LXXVII., notes). Are there not 
just as important details about every pond in the world ? (The great inter¬ 
est in Walden Pond is due almost .solely to Thoreau.) 



232 


FIFTH READER. 


LXXXI. —LOCH I NVAR. 

1. Ob, young Lochinvar is come out of the west! 
Through all the wide border his steed was the best; 
And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none ; 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

2. He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for 

stone; 

He swam the Eske River, where ford there was none; 
But, ere he alighted at Hetherby gate, 

The bride had consented—the gallant came late; 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in w T ar, 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

3. So boldly he entered the Hetherby hall, 

Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and 
all; 

Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword 
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 

“ Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 

Or to dance at our bridal, young lord Lochinvar?” 

4. “ I long wooed your daughter—my suit you denied; 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide; 
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine, 

To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochin¬ 
var.” 

5. The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up ; 
He quaffed off the wine and he threw down the cup; 


FIFTH READER. 


233 


She looked down to blush, and she looked np to sigh, 
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye; 

He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar— 

“ How tread we a measure! ” said young Lochinvar. 

6. So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and 

plume; 

And the bridemaidens whispered, “ ’Twere better by 
far 

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochin¬ 
var.” 

7. One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
When they reached the hall-door, and the charger 

stood near; 

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, 

So light to the saddle before her he sprung! 

“She is won! We are gone, over bank, bush, and 
scaur! 

They’ll have fleet steeds that follow! ” quoth young 
Lochinvar. 

8. There was mounting ’mong Graemes of the Hether- 

by clan; 

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and 
they ran; 

There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, 

But the lost bride of Hetherby ne’er did they see. 

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 

Have you e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? 

Walter Scott. 


234 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation. —I. From “ Marmion ” (sung by Lady Heron to King 
James IV.) (XLIII.). (See XXVII. for the beginning of “Marmion.”) 
Find, on your map, the Eske River (empties into the Solway Firth);—Can- 
nobie (on the south bank of the Eske, near the English border). 

II. Lb-eh-in-var', weap'-on§, daunt'-less, knight (nit), gal'-lant (and 
gal-lant'), mSa§'-ure (mezh'yur), -eou§'-in (kuz'n), maid'-en§ (mad'nz), tread, 
sigh. 

III. Dauntless (less?), faithful (ful?), boldly (It/?). What is omitted in 

they'll ? % 

IV. Border, broadsword, brake, consented, laggard, dastard, craven, de¬ 
nied, “ bonnet and plume,” charger, quoth, clan, quaffed. 

V. “ Over bank, bush, and scaur ” (or “ scar,” a precipice), galliard 
(gay dance). Mark the feet and the accented syllables in the 1st stanza. 


LXXXII.—HOW TO RENDER IMPASSIONED IDEAS. 

These include such strong passions as anger, defiance, 
revenge, hatred, terror, intense scorn, remorse and shame, 
and the extreme degree of the better feelings of courage, 
joy, grief, etc. 

The reading of this class is characterized by no new 
vocal elements, but by the extreme degree of all the ele¬ 
ments of speech : “ very loud force” “ very long slides ,” 
“ very abrupt stress ,” “ very long quantity ,” “ very wide 
compass of voice.” The “ volume ” and “ quality ” of voice 
change to suit the dignity or meanness of the passion. 

IMPASSIONED EARNESTNESS. 

“ Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed? with a kiss. 
Ask yourselves how this gracious' reception of our petition 
comports with those warlike' preparations which cover 
our waters and darken our land. Are fleets' and armies v 
necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? f Have 
we shown ourselves so unwilling' to be reconciled, that 



FIFTH READER. 


235 


force v must be called in to win back our love? Let us not 
'be deceived P, sir. These are the implements of war' and 
subjugation' —the last' arguments to which kings' resort.” 

{Patrick Henry.) 

INDIGNATION AND SCORN. 

“ Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are! 
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins, 
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty’s war, 

Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains. 

“ Oh, shame ! that in such a proud moment of life, 

Worth the history of ages, when, had you but hurled 
One bolt at your bloody invader, that strife 

Between freemen and tyrants had spread through 
the world— 

“ That then—oh, disgrace upon manhood !—e’en then 
You should falter, should cling to your pitiful breath; 
Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood 
men, 

And prefer a slave’s life to a glorious death ! ” 

(From “ To the Neapolitansby Thomas Moore.) 

. IMPASSIONED GRIEF. 

In impassioned expression, not pathetic, the slides are 
very long, rising and falling through the wfide interval 
of “ the octave .” These slides, shortened a semitone , ex¬ 
press impassioned grief and tenderness . The most em¬ 
phatic words require the “ tremulous vanishing stress ” 
also. 

Arthur is rightful heir to the English throne, and 
King John, his uncle, has induced Hubert, his chamber- 
lain, to murder the little prince in the most cruel way, 
by burning out his eyes with hot irons. 


236 


FIFTH READER. 


Arthur —An if an angel should have come to me, 

And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 

I would not have believed him. No tongue but Hubert’s— 
Hubert (to attendants) —Come forth! Do as I bid 
you do. 

Arthur —Oh, save me, Hubert—save me ! My eyes 
are out, 

Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men. 

Hubert —Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. 
Arthur —Alas! What need you be so boisterous- 
rough ? 

I will not struggle; I will stand stone-still. 

For Heaven’s sake, Hubert, let me not be bound ! 

Nay, hear me, Hubert! drive these men away, 

And I will sit as quiet as a lamb ; 

I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, 

Nor look upon the iron angrily : 

Thrust but these men away, and I’ll forgive you, 
Whatever torment you do put me to. 

{From “ King John" Shakespeare.) 
IMPASSIONED JOY. 

In addition to “ very loud force’’ and “very long 
slides,” and the usual u pure tone,” the extreme degree 
of joy requires the “ quick swelling ” and rapidly “ trem¬ 
ulous stress ” to give it passionate fervor. The pitch is 
high. 

EXAMPLE. 

When officers and men have given up all hope of re¬ 
lief, and are bravely awaiting a horrible death, Jessie 
Browm, a corporal’s wife, made doubly sensitive to sound 
by sickness, hears the far off music of the Scotch regi¬ 
ments sent to their succor, and shouts : 


FIFTH READER. 


237 


<c ‘ The Highlanders ! Oh, dinna ye hear 
The slogan far awa ? 

The McGregors ! Oh, I ken it weel; 

It is the grandest of them a’. 

“ ‘ God bless the bonny Highlanders !' 

We’re saved ! we’re saved !’ she cried ; 

And fell on her knees, and thanks to God 
Poured forth, like a full flood-tide.” 

(From “ The Belief of Lucknowby Robei't T. S. Lowell.) 


LXXXIII.—THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

1. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless 
day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung 
oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone 
on horseback through a singularly dreary tract of coun¬ 
try, and at length found myself, as the shades of the 
evening drew on, within view of the melancholy house 
of Usher. 

2. I know not how it was, but, with the first glimpse 
of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded 
my spirit. I say insufferable, for the feeling was unre¬ 
lieved by any of that half-pleasurable because poetic 
sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the 
sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. 

3. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere 
house, and the simple landscape features of the domain 
—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant, eye-like win¬ 
dows—upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white 
trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of 
soul, which I can compare to no earthly sensation more 


238 


FIFTH READER. 


properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon 
opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life, the hideous 
dropping off of the veil. 

4. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the 
heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought, which no 
goading of the imagination could torture into aught of 
the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was 
it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the house 
of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I 
grapple with shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as 
I pondered. 

5. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory 
conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combina¬ 
tions of very simple natural objects which have the power 
of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies 
among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, 
I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the par¬ 
ticulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, w T ould 
be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capac¬ 
ity for sorrowful impression ; and, acting upon this idea, 
I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and 
lurid tarn, that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, 
and gazed down, but with a shudder even more thrilling 
than before, upon the remodeled and inverted images of 
the gray sedge, the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and 
eye-like windows. 

6. Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now pro¬ 
posed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprie¬ 
tor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon compan¬ 
ions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our 
last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me 
in a distant part of the country—a letter from him, which, 


FIFTH READER. 


239 


in its wildly-importunate nature, had admitted of no other 
than a personal reply. 

7. The manuscript gave evidence of nervous agita¬ 
tion. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a men¬ 
tal disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest de¬ 
sire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal 
friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of 
my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the 
manner in which all this, and much more,, w'as said—it 
was the apparent heart that went with his request—which 
allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly 
obeyed forthwith what I still consider a very singular 
summons. 

8. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many 
solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the 
house of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to 
convey an idea of the exact character of the studies or 
of the occupations in which he involved me or led the 
way. An excited and highly-distempered ideality threw 
a sulphureous lustre over all. IIis long improvised dirges 
will ring forever in my ears. 

9. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a 
certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild 
air of the “ Last Waltz of Yon Weber.” From the paint¬ 
ings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which 
grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shud¬ 
dered, the more thrillingly because I shuddered knowing 
not why; from these paintings (vivid as their images now' 
are before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more 
than a small portion which should lie within the compass 
of merely written words. 

10. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his 
designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever 


240 


FIFTH READER. 


mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Koderick Usher. 
For me, at least, in the circumstances then surrounding 
me, there arose, out of the pure abstractions which the 
hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an 
intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I 
ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing 
yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli. 

% 

11. I have just spoken of that morbid condition of 
the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable 
to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of 
stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits 
to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which 
gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character 
of his performances. But the fervid facility of his im¬ 
promptus could not be so accounted for. They must 
have been, and were, in the notes as well as in the 
words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently 
accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisa¬ 
tions), the result of that intense mental collectedness 
and concentration to which I have previously alluded as 
observable only in particular moments of the highest 
artificial excitement. 

12. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easi¬ 
ly remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly im¬ 
pressed with it as he gave it, because, in the under or 
mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, 
and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of 
Usher of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her 
throne. The verses were entitled “ The Haunted Palace.” 

_ Edgar A. Poe. 


For Preparation. —I. From “The Fall of the House of Usher,” in 
which Poe describes the death of Usher, and the mysterious sinking of his 
house into the waters of the tarn. This extract contains the passages from 



FIFTH READER. 


241 


the opening of the story (1 to 7), and from the middle (8 to 12), introductory 
to the poem, “ The Haunted Palace.” The poem reflects the coloring and 
outline of the story, just as a placid lake reflects the tints and contour of the 
mountains that surround it. (See XLI., note.) It is almost a deep allegory, 
descriptive of the ruin stealing upon a gifted but intemperate man. Fuseli 
(10), the celebrated painter, lived and died in London, though Swiss by birth. 

II. Feat'-ure§, s&dg'-eg, hid'-e-oiis, veil, I'-$i-ness, reined (rand), 
liis'-tre, man'-sicm, sol'-emn (-em), sul-phu'-re-ohs, vague'-ness (vag'-), 
awe, gui-tar' (gi-), im-prSmp'-tilg, im-prSv'-i-sa'-tion, rhap'-so-dieg. 

III. Explain the s in features. What is the abbreviation for “ manu¬ 
script ” ? 

IY. Glimpse, vacant, depression, opium, goading, annihilate, lurid, tarn, 
inverted, sojourn, boon, improvised, perversion, amplification, educe, hypo¬ 
chondriac, morbid, fervid, fantasias, artificial. 

Y. Note (3) the reference, by way of comparison, of his sensations to the 
collapse that follows opium intoxication. (The whole story is colored with 
a sort of delirium tremens.) Note the “eye-like” windows repeated (3 and 
6), and remember it in reading “ The Haunted Palace,” whose windows are 
also eyes. The allusion to the waltz can be followed up to advantage as a 
hint for the rhythm of “The Haunted Palace.” Note the hint at inter¬ 
pretation which Poe gives us—“ Mystic current of its meaning” (12). 


LXXXIV.—THE HAUNTED PALACE. 

1. In the greenest of our valleys, 

By good angels tenanted, 

Once a fair and stately palace, 
Radiant palace, reared its head. 

In the monarch Thought’s dominion, 
It stood there! 

Never seraph spread a pinion 
Over fabric half so fair. 

2. Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow 
(This—all this—was in the olden 
Time, long ago); 

li 







242 


FIFTH READER. 

And every gentle air that dallied, 

In that sweet day, 

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went aw r ay. 

!. Wanderers in that happy valley 

Through two luminous windows saw 
Spirits moving musically 
To a lute’s well-tuned law. 

Round about a throne where sitting 
(Porphyrogene), 

In state his glory well befitting, 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 

:. And all wdth pearl and ruby glowing 
Was the fair palace-door, 

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 
And sparkling evermore, 

A troop of echoes whose sweet duty 
Was but to sing, 

In voices of surpassing beauty, 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 

i. But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 

Assailed the monarch’s high estate ; 

(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) 

And round about his home, the glory 
That blushed and bloomed, 

Is but a dim-remembered story 
Of the old time entombed. 

i. And travelers now within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows, see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 
To a discordant melody ; 


FIFTH READER. 


243 


While, like a rapid, ghastly river, 

Through the pale door, 

A hideous throng rush out forever, 

And laugh—but smile no more. 

Edgar A. Poe. 


For Preparation.—I. “The House of Usher” reappears here under the 
name of “ The Haunted Palace,” which fantastically reflects its lurid atmos¬ 
phere, but with a clearer portraiture of the lineaments of a genius going to 
wreck through dissipation. “ Porphyrogene ”—“ born in purple,” or of 
“ royal birth ” (kings of the Eastern, Roman, Empire). It must be remem¬ 
bered that the nature of poetry, music, and all art, admits of much variety 
in interpreting it into definite thoughts. 

II. Yal'-ley§, m5n'-ar-eh (-ark), sgr'-aph, &eh'-oes (ek'oz), en-tombed' 
(-toomd'), hid'-e-ous. 

III. Copy the 1st stanza, and mark the feet and accented syllables. Note 
the sixth line: “It - stood - there ”—three feet, with one syllable each, which 
should be pronounced long. (See XCVIII., vi.) Note the lines which have 
alliteration: radiant, reared; seraph, spread; fabric fair; glorious, golden; 
float, flow; etc. 

IV. Tenanted, radiant, reared, dominion, pinion, fabric, dallied, ram¬ 
parts, “ plumed and pallid,” luminous, lute. 

V. “ Stately palace,” “ reared its head.” Note the intrusion of the image 
of man into the description of a house. The figure of a noble human form 
rises constantly before the mind, and the broad and lofty brow of Poe sug¬ 
gests itself to the reader—that brow “ plumed and pallid.” “ Through two 
luminous windows saw spirits moving musically” (looking into the eyes 
saw poetic thoughts). “ Pearl and ruby ” (teeth and lips) of the “ palacc- 
door ” (mouth, which sang in rhymes, “ echoes ” of the “ wit and wisdom ” 
of the soul within). “ Evil things ” (misfortune, opium, and strong drink 
assailed). “ Red-litten ” (eyes bleared with dissipation); “ discordant melo¬ 
dy ” (of the spectres of delirium tremens). 


LXXXV.—A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 

1. Noon by tlie north clock! noon by the east! High 
noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely 
aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble 




244 


FIFTH HEADER. 


and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we pub¬ 
lic characters have a rough time of it! And among all 
the public characters chosen at the March meeting, where 
is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such 
manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the 
Town Pump ? 

2. The title of “ town treasurer ” is rightfully mine, 
as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The 
overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, 
since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without ex¬ 
pense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the 
fire-department, and one of the physicians of the board 
of health. 

3. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will 
confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the 
duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices 
when they are pasted on my front. To speak within 
bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and 
exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother 
officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and im¬ 
partial discharge of my business, and the constancy with 
which I stand to my post. 

4. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for 
all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above 
the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; 
and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show 
where I am and to keep people out of the gutters. 

5. At this sultry noontide I am cup-bearer to the 
parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is 
chained to my waist. Like a dram-seller on the mall, at 
muster-day I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest 
accents, and at the very tip-top of my voice, “ Here it is, 


245 


FIFTH. READER. 

/ 

gentlemen! here is the'good liquor! Walk up—walk 
up, gentlemen! walk up! walk up! Here is the superior 
stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam 
—better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or 
w T ine of any price. Here it is, by the hogshead or the 
single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentle¬ 
men ! w T alk up, and help yourselves! ” 

6. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no 
customers. Here they come! A hot day, gentlemen ! 
Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice, 
cool sweat! You, my friend, will need another cupful, 
to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there 
as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see you have trudged 
half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have 
passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks 
and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire 
within, you would have been burned to a cinder, or melt¬ 
ed down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish! 
Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks 
my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night’s potations 
—which he drained from no cup of mine. 

7. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been 
great strangers hitherto; nor, to express the truth, will 
my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes 
of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, 
man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gul¬ 
let, and is converted quite to steam. Fill again, and tell 
me, on the w’ord of an honest toper, did you ever, in cel¬ 
lar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of 
your children’s food for a swig half so delicious ? How, 
for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of 
cold water. Good-by, and whenever you are thirsty, re¬ 
member that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. 


246 


FIFTH READER. 


8. Who next ?—Oh, my little friend, you are let loose 
from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming 
face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, 
and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town 
Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. 
Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched 
with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child! 
put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly 
gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the stones that I 
suspect he is afraid of breaking them. 

9. What! he limps by without so much as thanking 
me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for peo¬ 
ple who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir! no harm 
done, I hope ! Go, draw the cork, tip the decanter; but 
when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no 
affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation 
of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty 
dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my 
hospitality, but stands on his hind-legs and laps eager¬ 
ly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away 
again!—Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout? 

10. Are you all satisfied ? Then wipe your mouths, 
my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment’s 
leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical remi¬ 
niscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow 
of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf- 
strewn earth, in the very spot where you behold me on 
the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear, 
and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. The Indian 
Sagamores drank of it from time immemorial, till the 
fearful deluge of fire-water burst upon the red men, and 
swept the whole race away from the cold fountains. 
Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt 


FIFTH READER. 


247 


down to drink, dipping tlieir long beards in the spring. 
The richest goblet then was of birch-bark. 

11. Governor Winthrop drank here, out of the hollow 
of his hand. The elder Iligginson here wet his palm and 
laid it on*the brow of the first town-born child. For 
many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the 
washbowl of the vicinity, whither all decent folks resort¬ 
ed to purify their visages, and gaze at them afterward—at 
least the pretty maidens did—in the mirror which it made. 
On Sabbath-days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, 
the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the com¬ 
munion-table of the humble meeting-house which partly 
covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one 
generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its 
waters, and cast its waxing and waning shadows into its 
glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth as if mortal 
life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally, 
the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides, 
and cart-loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence 
oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the cor¬ 
ner of two streets. 

12. In the hot months, when its refreshment was 
most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten 
birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But in the 
course of time a Town Pump was sunk into the source 
of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, an¬ 
other took its place, and then another, and still another, 
till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you, with 
my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed! The water is 
pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red 
Sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem 
of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, 
where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. 


248 


FIFTH HEADER. 


And be it the moral of my story, that, as the wasted and 
long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so 
shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since 
your fathers’ days, be recognized by all. 

13. Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my 
stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, 
to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke 
of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere 
along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter 
than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they 
lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their 
capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two 
a-piece, and they can afford time to breathe it in with 
sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet 
eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-ves¬ 
sel. An ox is your true toper. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 


Note. —In cases where a long and difficult lesson is met with, it is sug¬ 
gested that the piece be treated as a whole, but considered, first, in regard 
to its words (spelling and pronunciation); second, in regard to forms and 
technicalities (language-lessons); third, in regard to the meaning of the 
words as they are used in the piece ; fourth, the historical, biographical, and 
other allusions; fifth, the style and thought of the piece; sixth, its elocu¬ 
tion. In this way a piece like the one here given may profitably occupy the 
time of six recitations, and the pupil learn more from it than from a dozen 
easy pieces. 

For Preparation.—I. The author of this piece ranks as the first of 
American prose-writers. Explain the allusions to “March meeting” (1) 
(for choosing town officers); “town treasurer” (2); “dram-seller on the 
mall at muster-day ” (m&ll, a public shaded walk) ; “ Cognac ” (5); “ Endi- 
cott ” and “ Winthrop ” (11); “Sagamore” (12). Locate Salem on your map 
(the scene of this “ stream of eloquence ”), and the other places mentioned. 

II. Explain spelling and pronunciation of tr6ugh (trawf), phy-§i'- 
cian (fi-zish'un), -€og'-na-e (kim'yak), fl'-or-y, fSr'-ule (fer'ril), leaf-strewn 
(-etrun), pr6'-cious (prSsh'us), bu§'-i-ness (biz'nes), ^Sl'-larg, oozed, r&m-i- 
nis'-gen^-eg. 



FIFTH READER. 


249 


III. Explain the composition of the words tip-top, manifold, rightfully, 
outcry, darksome, immemorial. 

IV. Give, in your own words, the meaning of perpetuity, guardian, pro¬ 
mulgating, municipality, trudged, potations, rubicund, miniature, Tophct, 
hospitality, titillation of the gout (see XLVIIL, note I.), vicinity, conse¬ 
crated, interrupt, replenish. 

V. Who is talking in this piece ? Explain the metaphors, “ birthplace 
of waters, now their grave” (12); “stream of eloquence” (13). Explain 
the assertions in verses 3, 4, and 5, showing in what sense the Pump can 
boast of being “ the head of the fire-department,” “ physician of the board 
of health,” etc., etc. Follow out the personification of the Pump in each 
verse. Note the style of the piece, and account for its liveliness. Change 
one of the paragraphs into a dull, monotonous one, expressing the same ideas. 


LXXXVI.—THE EVE BEFORE WATERLOO. 

1. There was a sound of revelry by night, 

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then 
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell; 

But, hush ! hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising 
knell! 

2. Did ye not hear it ?—Ho; ’twas but the wind, 

Or the car rattling o’er the stony street. 

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; 

Ho sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet I 
But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, 

As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! 

Arm ! arm! it is—it is the cannon’s opening roar! 



260 


FIFTH READER. 


3. , Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; 

And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne’er might be repeated: who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 

Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could 
rise! 

4. And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; 

And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; 

While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 

Or whispering with white lips, “ The foe! They 
come! they come! ” 

5. And wild and high the “ Cameron’s gathering” rose! 

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albvn’s hills 
Have heard—and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which tills 
Their mountain pipe, so till the mountaineers 
With the tierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 

And Evan’s, Donald’s feme rings in each clansman’s 
ears! 

6. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 

Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, 





FIFTH READER. 


2S1 


Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, 

Over the unreturning brave—alas! 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on the foe, 

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and 
low. 

7. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 

Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, 

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 

The mom, the marshaling in arms—the day, 
Battle’s magnificently stern array! 

The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent 
The earth is covered thick with other clay, 

Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 
Rider and horse—friend, foe—in one red burial blent! 

Lord Byron . 


For Preparation. —I. An extract from “Cliilde Harold,” Canto III. 
Locate on the map the scenes of this poem. How far from Belgium’s cap¬ 
ital? (LXXXVIII.). “Lochiel;” “Albyn’s hills, and her Saxon foes;” 
“ Cameron’s gathering; ” “ pibroch ; ” “ Evan’s, Donald’s fame ”—explain 
these allusions. This forest of Ardennes (Shakespeare’s forest of Arden 
was in Warwickshire ?) is the wood of Soignies. Have you read, in Thack¬ 
eray’s “Yanity Fair,” the description he gives of this night in Brussels? 
(the occasion being the ball given by the Duchess of Richmond; Welling¬ 
ton told his officers to be present, as he wished to conceal from the people 
of Brussels the near approach of the battle.) 

II. Chiv'-al-ry (shiv'-), yo-liipt'-u-oiis, glow'-ing, squad'-ron, Lfreh- 
iel, Al'-byn (ai'-bin), pI'-bro«h, Ar-dSnnes' ( dSn') } griev'-ing, verd'- 
ure, bur'-i-al (Mr'rl-ai). 

III. Explain the effect of the dashes and exclamation-points in this piece. 

IV. Revelry, chivalry, squadron, impetuous, clansman, blent (blended). 

Y. Note the coloring of the picture: first, the revelry ; beauty and chiv¬ 
alry ; happy hearts; music and merry social intercourse; each one absorbed 





FIFTH READER. 


in the pleasure of the moment, thoughtless of the welfare of the country or 
of the affairs of the nation ; then, the sudden warning sound; the anxious 
questioning; the thoughtless and gay ridicule the alarm that is caused, resist 
the serious feeling that arises, and urge the renewal of the dance; but the 
sound grows nearer and clearer, and all become aware of the fact that the 
French army has attacked the forces of Wellington, posted within ten miles 
of the capital. The overwhelming interest of the occasion: all Europe 
looking on the last struggle with Napoleon; Napoleon, the great military 
genius of the age, and the French nation enthusiastic and devoted in his 
cause; his soldiers inspired with confidence by a hundred victories. On the 
other hand, the proud and stubborn English arrayed under their always 
successful leader, Wellington, “he that gained a hundred fights, nor ever 
lost an English gun ” (from Tennyson's Ode —CXLIII.); who had defeated, 
one after another, Napoleon’s best generals in the Spanish peninsula; the 
only man who had proved himself able to cope with the forces of Napoleon. 
Now, for the first time, Napoleon and Wellington meet face to face, and the 
solemn attention of the civilized world is fixed on the issue. If Napoleon is 
victorious, he will crush the English army, and then the German army, and 
no further opposition can be made to his power, which will then be supreme 
in Western Europe. In the 3d stanza (as here arranged—one being omitted 
because it breaks the connection by introducing a biographical item regard¬ 
ing Brunswick’s chieftain), note private griefs caused, and in the next ob¬ 
serve the contrast: all minds concentrated on the one great object, forgetful 
now of private interests and pleasure, fully aware of the immense impor¬ 
tance of the battle now begun. In the 5th stanza, the martial music of the 
Scotch is described, to give coloring to the picture. Then, Ardennes’ green 
leaves, and Nature’s tear-drops, and the closing scene. The poem lays 
more stress on the private interest than on the national; is more pathetic 
than patriotic; but, on the whole, is the greatest of martial poems. 


LXXXVII.—THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 

1. Had it not rained on the night of the 17th of June, 
1815, the future of Europe would have been changed. A 
few drops of water, more or less, prostrated Napoleon. 
That Waterloo should be the end of Austerlitz, Provi¬ 
dence needed only a little rain; and an unseasonable 
cloud crossing the sky sufficed for the overthrow of a 
world! 




FIFTH READER. 


253 


2. The battle of Waterloo—and this gave Bliicher 
time to come up—could not be commenced before lialf- 
past eleven. Why ? Because the ground was soft. It 
was necessary to wait for it to acquire some little firmness, 
so that the artillery could manoeuvre. 

3. Had the ground been dry and the artillery able 
to move, the action would have been commenced at six 
o’clock in the morning. The battle would have been won 
and finished at two o’clock, three hours before the Prus¬ 
sians turned the scale of fortune. 

4. How much fault is there on the part of Napoleon 
in the loss of this battle? His plan of battle was, all 
confess, a masterpiece. To march straight to the center 
of the allied line, pierce the enemy, cut them in two, 
push the British half upon Hal and the Prussian half 
upon Tongres, make of Wellington and Bliicher two 
fragments, carry Mont Saint-Jean, seize Brussels, throw 
the German into the Rhine and the Englishman into the 
sea—all this, for Napoleon, was in this battle. What 
would follow, anybody can see. 

5. Those who would get a clear idea of the battle of 
Waterloo, have only to lay down upon the ground, in their 
mind, a capital A. The left stroke of the A is the road 
from Nivelles; the right stroke is the road from Genappe; 
the cross of the A is the sunken road from Ohain to 
Braine-l’Alleud. The top of the A is Mont Saint-Jean— 
Wellington is there; the left-hand lower point is Ilougou- 
mont—Reille is there, with Jerome Bonaparte; the right- 
hand lower point is La Belle Alliance—Napoleon is there. 

6. A little below the point where the cross of the A 
meets and cuts the right stroke, is La ILaie Sainte. At 
the middle of this cross is the precise point where the 


254 


FIFTH READER. 


final battle-word was spoken. There the lion is placed, 
the involuntary symbol of the supreme heroism of the 
Imperial Guard. The triangle contained at the top of 
the A, between the two strokes and the cross, is the 
plateau of Mont Saint-Jean. The struggle for this pla¬ 
teau was the whole of the battle. 

7. Both generals had carefully studied the plain of 
Mont Saint-Jean, now called the plain of Waterloo. Al¬ 
ready, in the preceding year, Wellington, with the sagaci¬ 
ty of prescience, had examined it as a possible site for a 
great battle. On this ground, and for this contest, Wel¬ 
lington had the favorable side, Napoleon the unfavorable. 
The English army was above, the French army below. 

8. Toward four o’clock the situation of the English 
army was serious. Hougoumont yielding, La Ilaie Sainte 
taken, there was but one knot left—the center. That still 
held. Wellington reenforced it. He called thither Hill, 
who was at Merbe Braine, and Chasse, who was at Braine- 
l’Alleud. 

The centre of the English army, slightly concave, very 
dense, and very compact, held a strong position. It oc¬ 
cupied the plateau of Mont Saint-Jean, with the village 
behind it, and in front the declivity, "which at that time 
was steep. 

9. Wellington, anxious but impassible, was on horse¬ 
back, and remained there the whole day in the same atti¬ 
tude, a little in front of the old mill of Mont Saint-Jean, 
which is still standing, under an elm, which an English¬ 
man, an enthusiastic Vandal, has since bought for two 
hundred francs, cut down, and carried away. 

10. Wellington was frigidly heroic. The balls rained 
down. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, had just fallen at his 


FIFTH READER. 


side. Lord Hill, showing him a bursting shell, said: “ My 
lord, what are your instructions, and what orders do you 
leave us, if you allow yourself to be killed \ ” “ To fol¬ 

low my example” answered AVellington. To Clinton he 
said, laconically, “ Hold this spot to the last man ! ” The 
day was clearly going badly. Wellington cried to his 
old companions of Talavera, Yittoria, and Salamanca: 
“j Boys, we must not be beat! What would they say of 
us in England f ” 

11. About four o’clock the English line staggered 
backward. All at once only the artillery and the sharp¬ 
shooters were seen on the crest of the plateau; the rest 
disappeared. The regiments, driven by the shells and 
bullets of the French, fell back into the valley, now 
crossed by the cow-path of the farm of Mont Saint-Jean; 
a retrograde movement took place; the battle-front of the 
English was slipping away. Wellington gave ground. 
“ Beginning retreat! ” cried Napoleon. 

12. At the moment when Wellington drew back, Na¬ 
poleon started up. He saw the plateau of Mont Saint- 
Jean suddenly laid bare, and the front of the English 
army disappear. It rallied, but kept concealed. The 
emperor half-rose in his stirrups. The flush of victory 
passed into his eyes. Wellington hurled back on the for¬ 
est of Soignies, and destroyed—that was the final over¬ 
throw of England by France; it was Cressy, Poictiers, 
Malplaquet, and Eamillies avenged. The man of Ma¬ 
rengo was wiping out Agincourt. 

13. The emperor rose and reflected. Wellington had 
fallen back. It remained only to complete this repulse 
by a crushing charge. Napoleon, turning abruptly, sent 
off a courier at full speed to Paris to announce that the 
battle was won. 


256 


FIFTH READER. 


14. Napoleon was one of those geniuses who rule the 
thunder. He had found his thunderbolt. He ordered 
Milhaud’s cuirassiers to carry the plateau of Mont Saint- 
Jean. They were three thousand five hundred. They 
formed a line of half a mile. They were gigantic men 
on colossal horses. They were twenty-six squadrons, and 
they had behind them a strong support. 

15. Aide-de-camp Bernard brought them the empe¬ 
ror’s order. Ney drew his sword an<J placed himself at 
their head. The enormous squadrops began to move. 
Then was seen a fearful sight. All this cavalry, with 
sabers drawn, banners waving, and trumpets sounding, 
formed in column by division, descended with even move¬ 
ment and as one man—with the precision of a bronze bat¬ 
tering-ram opening a breach. 

16. An odd numerical coincidence—twenty-six bat¬ 
talions were to receive these twenty-six squadrons. Be¬ 
hind the crest of the plateau, under cover of the masked 
battery, the English infantry, formed in thirteen squares, 
two battalions to the square, and upon two lines—seven 
on the first, and six on the second—with musket to the 
shoulder, and eye upon their sights, waiting, calm, silent, 
and immovable. 

IT. They could not see the cuirassiers, and the cuiras¬ 
siers could not see them. They listened to the rising of 
this tide of men. They heard the increasing sound of 
three thousand horses, the alternate and measured strik¬ 
ing of their hoofs at full trot, the rattling of the cuirasses, 
the clinking of the sabers, and a sort of fierce roar of the 
coming host. 

18. There was a moment of fearful silence; then, sud¬ 
denly, a long line of raised arms brandishing sabers ap- 


FIFTH READER . 


2S7 


peared above the crest, with casques, trumpets, and stand¬ 
ards, and three thousand faces, with gray mustaches, 
crying, “ Vive V Empeveur ! ” All this cavalry debouched 
on the plateau, and it was like the beginning of an earth¬ 
quake. 


For Preparation.— I. From “ Les Miserables.” The extracts are from 
Book II., “ Cosette,” Chapters III. to XIII. What battle is referred to by 
Austerlitz ? Bead some account of Blucher and Wellingtonof Ney. Find 
Hal and Tongres on the map (the one to the left ten miles, and the other 
forty miles to the east, of Waterloo). 

II. Ma-nceu'-vre (-nu'-), c&n'-ter, sym'-bol, pla-teau' (-to'), yield'-ing, 
gen'-ius-es, lis'-tened (Hs'nd), in-ereas'-ing, al-ter'-nate, mSa§'-ured 
(mezh'yurd), fierce (feers), -casques (casks), mus-tagh'-eg (-tash'-), suf-ficed' 
(-frzd'). 

III. Unseasonable {un ?) ; overthrow (over ?) ; crossing {ing?). 

IV. Prostrated, sufficed, “ scale of fortune,” allied, fragments, precise, 
involuntary, supreme, triapgle, preceding, sagacity, prescience, serious, re¬ 
enforced, concave, dense, compact, declivity, enthusiastic, Vandal, frigidly, 
laconically, retrograde, rallied, concealed, repulse, abruptly, courier, thun¬ 
derbolt, enormous, squadrons, precision, battering-ram, coincidence, crest, 
standards. 

V. “Allied line ” (4): Who were in alliance against Napoleon ? Ex¬ 
plain the allusions to Talavera, Vittoria, Salamanca (locations of Welling¬ 
ton’s victories in Spain);—to Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, etc. (English vic¬ 
tories in France, the two former by Edward the Black Prince, and the lat¬ 
ter by Henry V.—Malplaquct and Ramillies by the Duke of Marlborough). 


LXXXVIll.— THE DEFEAT AT WATERLOO. 

1. All at once, tragic to relate, at the left of the Eng¬ 
lish, and on our right, the head of the column of cuiras¬ 
siers reared with a frightful clamor. Arrived at the cul¬ 
minating point of the crest, unmanageable, full of fury, 
and bent upon the extermination of the squares and can¬ 
nons, the cuirassiers saw between themselves and the 




268 


FIFTH READER. 


English a ditch—a grave. It was the sunken road of 
Ohain. 

2. It was a frightful moment. There was the ravine, 
unlooked-for, yawning at the very feet of the horses, two 
fathoms deep between its double slope. The second rank 
pushed in the first, the third pushed in the second; the 
horses reared, threw themselves over, fell upon their 
backs, and struggled with their feet in the air, piling up 
and overturning their riders; no power to retreat. The 
whole column was nothing but a projectile. The force 
acquired to crush the English crushed the French. 

3. The inexorable ravine could not yield until it was 
filled ; riders and horses rolled in together pell-mell, grind¬ 
ing each other, making common flesh in this dreadful 
gulf; and when the grave was full of living men, the rest 
rode over them and passed on. Almost a third of Du¬ 
bois’s brigade sank into this abyss. Here the loss of the 
battle began. 

4. A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates, says 
that two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were 
buried in the sunken road of Ohain. This undoubtedly 
comprised all the other bodies thrown into this ravine on 
the morrow after the battle. 

5. Napoleon, before ordering this charge of Milhaud’s 
cuirassiers, had examined the ground, but could not see 
this hollow road, which did not make even a wrinkle on 
the surface of the plateau. Warned, however, and put 
on his guard by the little white chapel which marks its 
junction with the Nivelles road, he had, probably on the 
contingency of an obstacle, put a question to the guide 
Lacoste. The guide had answered “No.” It may almost 
be said that from this shake of a peasant’s head came 
the catastrophe of Napoleon. 


FIFTH READER. 


259 


6. At the same time with the ravine, the artillery was 
unmasked. Sixty cannon and the thirteen squares thun¬ 
dered and flashed into the cuirassiers. The brave Gen¬ 
eral Delord gave the military salute to the English bat¬ 
tery. All the English flying artillery took position in 
the squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not even 
time to breathe. The disaster of the sunken road had 
decimated but not discouraged them. They were men 
who, diminished in numbers, grew greater in heart. 

7. Wathier’s column alone had suffered from the dis¬ 
aster. Delord’s, which hTey had sent obliquely to the 
left, as if he had a presentiment of the snare, arrived en¬ 
tire. The cuirassiers hurled themselves upon the English 
squares. At full gallop, with free rein, their sabers in 
their teeth and their pistols in their hands, the attack 
began. 

8. There are moments in battle when the soul hardens 
a man, even to changing the soldier into a statue, and all 
his flesh becomes granite. The English battalions, desper¬ 
ately assailed, did not yield an inch. Then it was fright¬ 
ful. All sides of the English squares were attacked at 
once. A whirlwind of frenzy enveloped them. 

9. This frigid infantry remained impassable. The 
first rank, with knee on the ground, received the cuiras¬ 
siers on their bayonets, the second shot them down; be¬ 
hind the second rank, the cannoneers loaded their guns, 
the front of the square opened, made way for an eruption 
of grape, and closed again. 

10. The cuirassiers answered by rushing upon them 
with crushing force. Their great horses reared, trampled 
upon the ranks, leaped over the bayonets, and fell, gigan¬ 
tic, in the midst of these four living walls. The balls 


260 


FIFTH READER. 


made gaps in the ranks of the cuirassiers; the cuirassiers 
made breaches in the squares. Files of men disappeared, 
ground down beneath the horses’ feet. 

11. The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, lessened 
by the catastrophe of the ravine, had to contend with 
almost the whole of the English army; but they multi¬ 
plied themselves—each man became equal to ten. Nev¬ 
ertheless, some Hanoverian battalions fell back. Wel¬ 
lington saw it, and remembered his cavalry. Had Napo¬ 
leon, at that very moment, remembered his infantry, he 
would have won the battle. This forgetfulness was his 
great, fatal blunder. 

12. Suddenly the assailing cuirassiers perceived that 
they were assailed. The English cavalry was upon their 
back. Before them the squares, behind them Somerset— 
Somerset, with the fourteen hundred dragoon guards. 
Somerset had on his right, Domberg, with his German 
light-horse; and on his left, Trip, with the Belgian car¬ 
bineers. The cuirassiers, attacked front, flank, and rear, 
by infantry and cavalry, were compelled to face in all 
directions. What was that to them ? They were a whirl¬ 
wind. Their valor became unspeakable. 

13. The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of 
thirteen, took or spiked sixty pieces of cannon, and took 
from the English regiments six colors, which three cuiras¬ 
siers and three chasseurs of the guard carried to the em¬ 
peror before the farm of La Belle Alliance. The situa¬ 
tion of Wellington was growing worse. This strange 
battle was like a duel between two wounded infuriates, 
who, while yet fighting and resisting, lose all their blood. 
Which of the two shall fall first ? 

14. At five o’clock Wellington drew out his watch, 
and was heard to murmur these somber words, “ Bliicher, 




FIFTH HEADER. 


261 


or night! ” It was about this time that a distant line of 
bayonets glistened on the heights beyond Frischemont. 
Here is the turning-point in this colossal drama. 

15. The rest is known : the irruption of a third army ; 
the battle thrown out of joint; eighty-six pieces of ar¬ 
tillery suddenly thundering forth; a new battle falling 
at nightfall upon our dismantled regiments; the whole 
English line assuming the offensive, and pushing forward; 
the gigantic gap made in the French army; the English 
grape and the Prussian grape lending mutual aid ; exter¬ 
mination, disaster in front, disaster in flank; the Guard 
entering into line amid the terrible crumbling. 

16. Feeling that they were going to their death, they 
cried out, “ Vive VEmjpereur ! ” There is nothing more 
touching in history than this death-agony bursting forth 
in acclamations. 

IT. Each battalion of the Guard, for this final effort, 
was commanded by a general. When the tall caps of the 
grenadiers of the Guard, with their large eagle-plates, 
appeared, symmetrical, drawn up in line, calm, in the 
smoke of that conflict, the enemy felt respect for France. 
They thought they saw twenty victories entering upon the 
field of battle, with wings extended, and those who were 
conquerors, thinking themselves conquered, recoiled; but 
Wellington cried, “Up, Guards, and at them!” 

18. The red regiment of English Guards, lying behind 
the hedges, rose up. A shower of grape riddled the tri¬ 
colored flag fluttering about our eagles; all hurled them¬ 
selves forward, and the final carnage began. The Im¬ 
perial Guard felt the army slipping away around them in 
the gloom and in the vast overthrow of the rout; they 
heard the “ Sauve qui pent! ” which had replaced the 


262 


FIFTH READER. 


“ Vive VEmjpereur ! ” and, witli flight behind them, they 
held on their course, battered more and more, and dying 
faster and faster at every step. There were no weak souls 
or cowards there. The privates of that band were as he¬ 
roic as their general. Not a man flinched from the suicide. 

19. The rout behind the Guard was dismal. The 
army fell back rapidly from all sides at once. The cry, 
“ Treachery! ” was followed by the cry, “ Sauve qui 
pent!” A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole 
bends, cracks, snaps, floats, rolls, falls, crashes, hurries, 
plunges. Mysterious disintegration! Napoleon gallops 
along the fugitives, harangues them, urges, threatens, 
entreats. The mouths which in the morning were cry¬ 
ing “ Vive VEmpereur ! ” are now agape. He is hardly 
recognized. 

20. The Prussian cavalry, just come up, spring for¬ 
ward, fling themselves upon the enemy, saber, cut, hack, 
kill, exterminate. Teams rush off; the guns are left to 
the care of themselves; the soldiers of the train unhitch 
the caissons, and take the horses to escape; wagons up¬ 
set, with their four wheels in the air, block up the road, 
and are accessories of massacre. 

21. They crush and they crowd; they trample upon 
the living and the dead. Arms are broken. A multi¬ 
tude fills roads, paths, bridges, plains, hills, valleys, woods, 
choked up by the flight of forty thousand men. Cries, 
despair, knapsacks and muskets cast into the growing 
rye; passages forced at the point of the sword; no more 
comrades, no more officers, no more generals; inexpress¬ 
ible dismay. 

22. In the gathering night, on a field near Genappe, 
Bernard and Bertrand seized by a flap of his coat and 


FIFTH READER. 


263 


stopped a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, dragged 
thus far by the current of the rout, had dismounted, passed 
the bridle of his horse under his arm, and, with bewil¬ 
dered eye, was returning alone toward Waterloo. It was 
Napoleon, endeavoring to advance again—mighty som¬ 
nambulist of a vanished dream. 

Vidor Hugo. 

For Preparation. —I. The road from Brussels runs south nine miles to 
Waterloo village, then five miles further to Mont Saint-Jean, where it 
divides; one fork goes to the southwest through Hougoumont, three miles 
distant, to Nivelles, five more; the other fork runs southerly two miles 
to La Haie Sainte ; two more to La Belle Alliance; three more to Genappe; 
three more to Quatre-Bras. Vive VEmpereur (vev lom-pa-rdr). 

II. -Gui-ras-sier§' (kwe-), -ebl'-umn (-um), e^-ag'-ger-ates (egz-fij'-er-), 
bur'-ied (bSr'red), un-doubt'-ed-ly (-dout'-), pla-teau' (-to'), €a-tas'-tro- 
phe, dis-eofir'-aged (-kur'Sjd), ob-lique'-ly (-leek'-), rein, sa'-ber, St-ta-ek', 
gran'-ite (-it), yield, gl-gan'-tie, <?has'-se1ir§ (shas'sars), heights (hits), 
grSn-a-dier§', «6n'-quer-or§ (konk'er-), h5dg'-e§, su'-i-Qide, tr&ach'-er-y, 
mys-te'-ri-ohs, fu'-gi-tive§, ha-rangue§' (-rangz'), threat'-en§ (thret'nz) 
gape, r&e'-og-nlze, mas'-sa-ere ( ker), en-dSav'-or-ing (-dfiv'ur-). 

III. Symmetrical (sym ?); unmanageable (un and able ?). 

IV. Tragic, relate, clamor, calumniating, extermination, ravine, fathoms, 
projectile, inexorable, abyss, tradition, evidently, contingency, artillery, dis¬ 
aster, decimated, diminished, presentiment, battalion, desperately, assailed, 
infantry, breaches, cavalry, annihilated, spiked, infuriate, colossal, dis¬ 
mantled, extermination, acclamations, “tricolored flag,” carnage, disband¬ 
ing, disintegration, caissons, haggard, bewildered, “ somnambulist of a van¬ 
ished dream.” 

V. “ Sauve qui pact! ” (sov ke puh) (“ Save himself who can! ”) 


LXXXIX.—THE SUBLIMITY OF GOD. 

1. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou 
art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty: 

2. Who coverest thyself with light as with a gar¬ 
ment : who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: 




264 


FIFTH READER. 


3. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the 
waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh 
upon the wings of the wind: 

4. Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a 
flaming fire: 

5. Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it 
should not be removed forever. 

6. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a gar¬ 
ment : the w r aters stood above the mountains. 

7. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thun¬ 
der they hasted away. 

8. They go up by the mountains; they go down by 
the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for 
them. 

9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; 
that they turn not again to cover the earth. 

10. He sendetli the springs into the valleys, which 
run among the hills. 

11. They give drink to every beast of the field: the 
wild asses quench their thirst. 

12. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their 
habitation, which sing among the branches. 

13. He wateretli the hills from his chambers: the 
earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. 

14. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth 
food out of the earth; 

15. And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and 
oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strength¬ 
ened man’s heart. 


FIFTH HEADER. 


265 


16. The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars 
of Lebanon, which he hath planted; 

17. Where the birds make their nests: as for the 
stork, the fir-trees are her house. 

18. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and 
the rocks for the conies. 

19. He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun 
knoweth his going down. 

20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein 
all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. 

21. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek 
their meat from God. 

22. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, 
and lay them down in their dens. 

23. Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor 
until the evening. 

24. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom 
hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. 

25. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things 
creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 

26. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom 
thou hast made to play therein. 

27. These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give 
them their meat in due season. 

28. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest 
thine hand, they are filled with good. 

29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou 
takest away their breath, they die, and return to their 
dust. 


12 


266 


FIFTH READER. 


30. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: 
and thou renewest the face of the earth. 

31. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever: the 
Lord shall rejoice in his works. 

32. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he 
toucheth the hills, and they smoke. 

Psalm CIV. 


For Preparation. —I. This is the most sublime description in litera¬ 
ture ; it represents the greatest possible contrast between visible things 
and the power that moves and sustains them, and it portrays this power 
not as an abstract force, but as a person with human form. 

II. Maj'-es-ty, foun-da'-tion§, mount'-ain§ (-inz), val'-ley§, -eov'-er- 
edst, in-nu/-mer-a-ble, £e'-dar§. 

III. Select the words in which st or cst indicates that a person is ad¬ 
dressed, and present time;—in which th or eth indicates a person spoken of, 
in the present time;—in which dst indicates a person addressed, and past 
time. 

IV. Chariots, quench, manifold, habitation, leviathan. 

V. What allusion to the Deluge, in the 6th verse ? Make a list of things 
mentioned as caused by the Lord in this psalm. “ Cedars of Lebanon ”— 
grew on what mountains ? Why the change in verses 10 to 19 from “ thou ” 
to “ he ” ? (for the sake of variety in the music of the words— est for eth ? 
or for agreement with the other clauses that describe the objects created and 
which use cth —referring to things spoken of). What allusion to volcanoes, 
in the 3 2d verse ? 


XC.—POETIC READING. 

I.—INTRODUCTION. 

Poetry is the union of speech and music. It com¬ 
bines the logical worth of prose with the metric form of 
song; and though the logical part may predominate in 
some poems, and the musical in others, yet, in all the 
best poetry, these two elements blend in perfect har¬ 
mony. 




FIFTH READER. 


267 


No reading is tolerable which habitually violates either 
the sense or the measure. For if the meter alone is 
marked, without regard to the thoughts, the reading be¬ 
comes senseless “ sing-song ” ; and if the ideas are given 
with no observance of the measure, poetry is degraded to 
mere prose. 

Good reading, then, must give the meaning and the 
measure in unison, so far as the poet has harmonized 
them. 

Now, that part of poetry which it possesses in com¬ 
mon with prose—viz., the sense —must be read precisely 
as it should be in prose. The same principles of logical 
and emotional analysis, and the same lights and shades of 
vocal expression, must be used. The distinctive ideas 
must be read with the same emphatic force and slides 
which individuate the important points in good prose 
speaking or reading. This will go far to break up the 
“ false gallop of verse,” and preserve the logical side of 
poetry. 

But the metric form of poetry shows its kinship to 
music also. The lights and shades of accent and time, 
which make but irregular rhythm even in the most poetic 
prose, are moulded into equable measure and regular re¬ 
currence in poetry. Rhythm is thus raised to law. 

Now, this musical side of poetry, with its great variety 
of metric and rhythmic forms, cannot be well read with¬ 
out some intelligent appreciation of the special meter and 
rhythm in which a given poem has been written. 

II.-METER AND RHYTHM. 

The metric unit by which poetry is measured is called 
a “ foot.” Each perfect line is composed of a certain 
number of equal parts , or “ feet.” Each standard foot 
has one accented syllable and one or two unaccented sylla- 


268 


FIFTH READER. 


bles. The accented syllable may be the first or the last 
in a foot. 

In time, the accented syllables are long and the un¬ 
accented are short. 

We have thus four feet, differing from each other in 
accent or in time, and alike only in this, that each has 
one accented long syllable. These four are the “ regular ” 
or standard feet in English verse: two dissyllabic, and 
two trisyllabic. 

Meter, as we use the term, more strictly refers to the 
number of feet in the respective lines, and varies with the 
number of the accented syllables. 

Rhythm refers to the hind of feet, and varies with 
the number and time of the unaccented syllables and the 
place of the accent in the feet. 

III.-REGULAR FEET. 

The Regular Dissyllabic Feet. 

FIRST KIND. 

“ The way' | was long', | the wind' | was cold'.” 

In this line, from Scott’s “ Lay of the Last Minstrel,” 
the four accents give the meaning, and the meter also, of 
four feet. This foot of two syllables, with the accent 
on the last, is called, in prosody, an “ iambus ,” and the 
rhythm of such feet “ iambic A 

SECOND KIND. 

“ Tell' me | not' in | mourn'ful | num'bers.” 

In this line, from Longfellow’s “ Psalm of Life,” the 
same number of accents, as in the line above, give the 
same meter of “ four feet ” ; but the accent falls on the 
first of the two syllables in each foot, and thus the 
rhythm is changed. 


FIFTH READER. 


2 69 


This foot is named, in prosody, a “ trochee ” (tro-ke), 
and the rhythm of snch feet “ trochaic.” 

The Regular Trisyllabic Feet. 

FIRST KIND. 

“ Like the leaves' | of the for'- | est when Sum'- | mer 
is green'.” 

In this line, from “ The Destruction of Sennacherib,” 
by Lord Byron, we have twelve syllables, but the same 
number of natural accents as in the lines of only eight 
syllables above, and so the same number of feet, or 
“ meter.” But the rhythm and the measure are greatly 
changed by the double number of unaccented short sylla¬ 
bles in these “ four feet.” 

This trisyllabic foot, with the accent on the last syl¬ 
lable, is commonly named an “ anapcest,” and the rhythm 
of such feet “ anapeestic.” 

SECOND KIND. 

“ Bird' of the | wil'derness, 

Blithe'some and | cum'berless, 

Sweet' be thy | mat'in o’er | moor'land and | lea'! 
Em'blem of | hap'piness, 

Blest' is thy | dwelling place ! 

Oh', to a- | bide' in the | des'ert with | thee'! ” 

This foot of three syllables, with the accent on the 
first, is called a “ dactyl” and the rhythm of such feet 
“ dactylic.” 

In these lines, from “ The Lark,” by James Hogg, 
the metre changes from two feet to four in every third 
line; while the rhythm is the same , except in the last 
foot of the longer lines. Hote, in reading, how pleasantly 
the one long syllable “lea,” and “thee,” breaks the mo¬ 
notony of the regular foot. 


270 


FIFTH READER. 


IV.-IRREGULAR FEET. 

Used for Rhythmic Variety. 

Every poem in the English language of any character, 
whatever the meter, is founded on one or another of the 
four “ regular feet ” illustrated above, and on one of the 
two kinds of standard measure, viz., “ the dissyllabic ” or 
“ the trisyllabic.” 

In the regular lines of any poem, every foot has the 
same number of syllables, and the same place of the ac¬ 
cent as well as the same time. 

But this perfect regularity of any standard measure, 
which so pleases the ear for a while, becomes disagreeable 
sameness if not in some way varied now and then. Hence 
the frequent use of irregular feet in the place of the 
regular, as substitutes, having the same standard time , 
but varying in the number of their syllables, or in the 
place of the accent, from the regular foot. 

First, the monosyllabic foot , as “ lea ” and “ thee” 
in the lines above. This foot of one long emphatic syl¬ 
lable is a very important one, used as a substitute in both 
regular measures. Its time varies to suit the measure in 
which it occurs. Here, in “ The Lark,” it fills the time 
of the three syllables in the regular foot; while in the 
alternate lines of the “ Psalm of Life ” it fills the dis¬ 
syllabic measure: 

“ Tell me not in mournful numbers, 

Life' is | but' an | emp'ty | dream.'” 

Second, the dissyllabic foot , used for the trisyllabic, as 
in the following line from the same poem, “ The Lark ” : 

“ Thy lay’ | is in heaven', | thy love ' | is on earth'.” 

Observe the change in the grouping and in the accent 
of the syllables, and note, by the ear, how perfectly the 


FIFTH READER. 


271 


meter and measure are preserved, while the rhythm is 
thus happily varied. 

In the trisyllabic measure quoted from Byron, the 
same foot of two syllables comes in, at intervals, to change 
the rhythm, and give relief from the dancing measure of 
the “ regular feet ”: 

“ Like the leaves' of the for'est when Au'tumn hath 
blown', 

That host ' on the m or'row lay with'ered and strown'.” 

“ For the an'gel of Death' spread his wings' on the blast', 
And breathed ' in the face' of the foe' as he passed'! ” 

The rhythm is still further varied, within the same 
measure, by accenting the middle syllable of the trisyl¬ 
labic foot, and again by adding a fourth, when the four 
syllables can be read in the same metric time as the ordi¬ 
nary three, as in the “ Cataract of Lodore,” by Southey, 
or in Hood’s “ Bridge of Sighs.” The metre of the latter 
is two feet , trisyllabic, with the accent on the first syl¬ 
lable in the standard foot , as in the first and third lines: 

“ Take' her up | ten'derly! 

Lift' her with | care'! 

Fash'ioned so | slen'derly, 

Young', and so | fair'. 

“ Own'ing her | weak'ness, 

Her ev'il | behav'ior. 

“ The bleak' | winds of March' 

Made her trem'- | ble and shiv'er. 

“ Alas'! for the | rar'ity 
Of Chris'tian | char'ity 
Un'der the | sun'.” 


272 


FIFTH READER . 


Yet we have, in these few lines of the same meter and 
measure , almost every variety of the metric foot (in form) 
known in English verse, from one syllable to four , with 
the accent on each in turn except the fourth; and it might 
as well have been given to a fourth, as it actually is in the 
same metric time in the second foot of Byron’s line: 

“ The Assyr'- | ian came down' | like the wolf' | on the 
fold'.” 

In dissyllabic measure , the irregular feet are the 
monosyllabic and the trisyllabic; while the changes from 
the one dissyllabic foot to the other—that is, the changes 
in the place of the accent—are so frequent that it is not 
always easy to tell which is the regular foot. 

As, in Milton’s “ L’Allegro,” the prevalent foot is the 
“ trochee,” two syllables with accent on the first, in four 
feet meter, yet about one-half of the lines have seven 
syllables, with one monosyllabic foot; as, 

“ Haste' thee, | nympli', and | bring' with | thee'; ” 

and nearly a third of the feet have the accent on the last 
instead of the first syllable in the foot. 

“ Then' to | come' in | spite' of | sor'row, 

And' at my | win'dow | bid' good- | mor'row.” 

The first line in the last couplet is regular. The four 
feet have each the number of syllables and the accent of 
the prevalent foot. In the second line, note the irreg¬ 
ular foot of three syllables—“ And' at my ”—and how 
smoothly it flows into the dissyllabic measure: 

“ Then' to the | well'-trod | stage' | anon', 

If Jon'- | son’s learn'- | ed sock' | be on', 

Or sweet'- | est Shake'- | speare, Fan'- | cy’s child', 
War'ble | his na'- | tive wood'- | notes wild'.” 


FIFTH READER. 


273 


In the first line we have both substitutes —the foot 
of three syllables , and the foot of one emphatic syllable— 
and a change of accent on the last foot; and in the last 
line the change of the accent on th q first foot. 

These irregular feet, and the changes in the place of 
the accent in the regular measure, are valuable for the 
larger freedom they give to the poet in his choice of 
words, as well as for their rhythmic variety. Shake¬ 
speare’s “ heroic measure ” is so often varied by these 
changes to suit the infinite variety of his thoughts and 
language, that his poetry reads with all the freedom of 
rhythmic prose, as well as with the smoothness which 
only perfect measure can give. 

The regular meter is five dissyllabic feet, with the 
accent on the last syllable (iambic), as in these lines from 
“ Henry V.”: 

“ If we r are marked' to die', we are' enough' 

To do' our coun'try loss'; and if' to live’, 

The few'er men' the great'er share' of hon'orF 

Only the last foot is irregular, having an extra syllable. 
But take the opening of “ Mark Antony’s Oration ”: 

“ Friends', | Ro'mans, | coun'trymen, | lend' me | your 
ears'! 

I come' to bur'y Cse'sar, not' to praise' him. 

The e'vil that' men do' lives aft'er them'.” 

The last line is regular. In the first line only the 
last foot—“ your ears' ”—is regular. The first foot is 
monosyllabic ; the second has the accent on the first syl¬ 
lable ; the third foot has three syllables, and the accent 
on the first / and the fourth has the accent of the “ tro¬ 
chee ” also. In the second line the last foot has an extra 
syllable. 


274 


FIFTH READER. 


XCI.—MAN’S PHYSICAL AND MENTAL SUPERIORITY. 

1. Man’s grand distinction is his intellect—his mental 
capacity. It is this which renders him highly and pe¬ 
culiarly responsible to his Creator. 

2. It is on account of this that the rule over other 
animals is established in his hands; and it is this, mainly, 
which enables him to exercise dominion over the powers 
of Nature, and to subdue them to himself. 

3. But it is true, also, that his own animal organiza¬ 
tion gives him superiority, and is among the most won¬ 
derful of the works of God on earth. It contributes to 
cause, as well as prove, his elevated rank in creation. 

4. His port is erect, his face toward heaven, and he is 
furnished with limbs which are not absolutely necessary 
to his support or locomotion, and which are at once pow¬ 
erful, flexible, capable of innumerable modes and varie¬ 
ties of action, and terminated by an instrument of won¬ 
derful, heavenly workmanship—the human hand. 

5. This marvelous physical conformation gives man 
the power of acting with great effect upon external ob¬ 
jects in pursuance of the suggestions of his understand¬ 
ing, and of applying the results of his reasoning power 
to his own purposes. Without this particular formation 
he would not be a man, with whatever sagacity he might 
have been endowed. 

6. No bounteous grant of intellect, were it the pleas¬ 
ure of Heaven to make such grant, could raise any of the 
brute creation to an equality with the human race. 

7. Were it bestowed on the leviathan, he must remain, 
nevertheless, in the element where alone he could main¬ 
tain his physical existence; he would still be but the in- 


FIFTH READER. 


275 


elegant, misshapen inhabitant of the ocean, “ wallowing, 
unwieldy, enormous in his gait.” 

8. "Were the elephant made to possess it, it would but 
teach him the deformity of his own structure, the un¬ 
sightliness of his frame, though “ the hugest of things,” 
his disability to act on external matter, and the degrading 
nature of his own physical wants, which led him to the 
desert, and gave him for his favorite home the torrid 
flames of the tropics. 

9. It was placing the king of Babylon sufficiently out 

of the rank of human beings, though he carried all his 
reasoning faculties with him, when he was sent away to 
eat grass like an OX. _ Daniel Webster. 

For Preparation.—I. “ King of Babylon ”—what king is referred to ? 

II. Phy§'-i-e-al (fiz'-), sug-g£s'-tion§ (-jest'yunz), un-wield'-y, Sl'-e- 
phant, suf-fi'-cient-ly (-fish'ent-), fa'-vor'-ite. 

III. Innumerable (in, ble ?) ; wonderful (ful ?) ; bounteous (ous ?); mis¬ 
shapen (mis, en ?); inelegant (in ?); disability (dis ?). 

IY. Distinction, intellect, capacity, peculiarly, responsible, established, 

. dominion, subdue, organization, superiority, contributes, elevated, furnished, 
absolutely, locomotion, flexible, innumerable, varieties, terminated, instru¬ 
ment, marvelous, conformation, pursuance, applying, sagacity, bounteous, 
leviathan, maintain, inelegant, enormous, gait, deformity, unsightliness, 
degrading. 

V. Though “ the hugest of things ” (an intended quotation from Mil¬ 
ton’s description of the leviathan, “ Which God of all his works created 
hugest that swim the ocean stream ”). 


XCII.—EACH AND ALL 

1. Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down. 

2. The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; 




6 


FIFTH READER. 


3. The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

4. Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 

While his tiles sweep round yon Alpine height; 

5. Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent. 

6. All are needed by each one ; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

7. I thought the sparrow’s note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 

I brought him home in his nest, at even ; 

He sings the song, but it pleases not now ; 

For I did not bring home the river and sky; 

He sang to my ear—they sang to my eye. 

8. The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 

The bubbles of the latest wave 
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 
Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam ; 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
Had left their beauty on the shore, 

With the sun and the sand, and the wild uproar. 

9. The lover watched his graceful maid, 

As ’mid the virgin train she strayed; 

10. Nor knew her beauty’s best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 


FIFTH READER. 


277 


11. At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; 

12. The gay enchantment was undone— 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

13. Then I said, u I covet truth; 

Beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat— 

I leave it behind with the games of youth.” 

14. As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 
Running over the club-moss burrs ; 

I inhaled the violet’s breath; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground ; 

Over me soared the eternal sky, 

Pull of light and of deity ; 

15. Again I saw, again I heard 

The rolling river, the morning bird ; 

Beauty through my senses stole— 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 


For Preparation. — I. The poems of Emerson are so elevated in their 
tone, and are so far removed from the jingle of rhyme and rhythm, and 
express such subtleties of thought, that a beginner makes very little “ rhyme 
or reason” out of them. They belong to the class of literature called 
“ oracles.” Like the hymns of the Yedas, the lyrics of Orpheus and of 
Pindar, or the Zoroastrian oracles, they belong to a serene height, and will 
grow more and more in honor. 

II. HSif'-er (hef-), yield'-ed, biib'-ble§, trga§'-ure§ (trezh'urz), vi'-o- 
let’s breath (breth). 

III. Make a list of twelve words with the prefixes super or hyper (mean¬ 
ing over ); also a list of twelve words with the prefixes sub and hypo (mean- 



278 


FIFTH READER. 


ing under) ; and a list of twelve, with ante or pro (meaning before ), or with 
post (meaning after). 

IV. Lows, deems, lists, argument, creed, enamel, hermitage, covet, in¬ 
haled, soared, enchantment, noisome. 

V. The thought of “ each and all ” is that of the relation of dependence 
of the part upon the whole—a relation extending far beyond the knowledge 
of the individual; and the difference in degrees of insight or wisdom that 
people possess, lies just in their different powers of seeing things in their re¬ 
lation to the whole, and of seeing the whole itself. Standing on a hill, you 
see clown and heifer, unconscious that they add a charm to the landscape 
seen by you, as the sexton was unconscious of the delight given to Napoleon. 
A good life is a silent argument to strengthen your neighbor’s good princi¬ 
ples. Each lives for all and all live for each , whether we see the connect¬ 
ing links of it or not. As all the parts of the landscape contribute to the 
beauty of the whole (6 and 7), but no one is beautiful by itself, so it is with 
the individuals of society. The bird’s song is just in place in the field or 
forest; the shell is prettier on the shore.—“ The savage sea greeted ”—as 
though the sea bellowed when it saw the shells escaping from its waves into 
my hands. “Woven still by the snow-white choir”—she looked more beau¬ 
tiful among the other maidens. “ I covet truth ”—i. e., in preference to all 
this seeming or appearance which is lent to things by their surroundings, and 
does not belong to them in reality; truth is their reality , in contrast to their 
seeming. But then (14) the question arose in the poet’s mind, “Are these 
things true and real in their separate existence, or only in this very relation 
to other things which makes them seem ?” The pine, the moss, the violet, 
oaks, firs, rivers, birds—all are necessary to the landscape, and each is de¬ 
pendent on something external to itself—dependent on its surroundings: 
the plants depend on the ground, and the water, and the air; the animals 
depend on the plants, water, and air; and the poet depends on them all, 
and likewise poetically enjoys the whole landscape, which would not be the 
delightful thing it is if you took away a single one of its elements: Each 
is for all. 


XCIII.—RIP VAN WINKLE’S SLEEP. 

1. In a long ramble, on a fine autumnal day, Kip 
had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest 
parts of the Kaatsldll Mountains. He was after his 
favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes 
had echoed and reechoed with the reports of his gun. 




Rip Van Winkle 


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4 














































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FIFTH READER. 


279 


Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the after¬ 
noon, on a green knoll covered with mountain herbage, 
that crowned the brow of the precipice. Prom an open¬ 
ing between the trees he could overlook all the lower 
country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a 
distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving 
in its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a 
purple cloud, or the sail of a laggingbark here and there 
sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in 
the blue highlands. 

2. On the other side he looked down into a deep 
mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom 
filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and 
scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. 
For some time Kip lay musing on this scene. Evening 
was gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw 
their long blue shadows over the valleys. He saw that it 
would be dark long before he could reach the village, and 
he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering 
the terrors of Dame Yan Winkle. 

3. As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from 
a distance, hallooing, “Rip Yan Winkle! Kip Yan 
Winkle ! ” He looked round, but could see nothing but 
a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountains. 
He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned 
again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring 
through the still evening air, “ Rip Yan Winkle ! Kip 
Yan Winkle! ” At the same time, Wolf bristled up his 
back, and, giving a loud growl, skulked to his master’s 
side, looking fearfully down the glen. 

4. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over 
him; he looked anxiously in the same direction, and per¬ 
ceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and 


280 


FIFTH READER. 


bending under the weight of something he carried on his 
back. He was surprised to see any human being in this 
lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be 
some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, 
he hastened down to yield it. 

5. On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at 
the singularity of the stranger’s appearance. He was a 
short, square-built old fellow, with thick, bushy hair, and 
grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch 
fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several 
pairs of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, deco¬ 
rated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches 
at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that 
seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach 
and assist him with the load. 

6. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new ac¬ 
quaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and 
mutually relieving each other, they clambered up a nar¬ 
row gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. 
As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, 
rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue 
out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, 
toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused 
for an instant; but supposing it to be the muttering of 
one of those transient thunder-showers which often take 
place in mountain heights, he proceeded. 

7. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, 
like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular 
precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot 
their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the 
azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the 
whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in si¬ 
lence ; for though the former marveled greatly what 


FIFTH READER. 


281 


could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this 
wild mountain, yet there was something strange and in¬ 
comprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe 
and checked familiarity. 

8. On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of won¬ 
der presented themselves. On a level spot in the center 
was a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine¬ 
pins. They were dressed in quaint, outlandish fashion. 
Some wore short doublets; others jerkins, with long 
knives in their belts; and most of them had enormous 
breeches, of similar style with those of the guide. Their 
visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large head, broad 
face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed 
to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a 
white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock’s tail. 

9. They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. 
There was one who seemed to be the commander. He 
was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten coun¬ 
tenance ; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, 
high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high- 
heeled shoes, with roses in them. The w T hole group re¬ 
minded Hip .of the figures in an old Flemish painting in 
the parlor of Dominie Yan Shaick, the village parson, and 
which had been brought over from Holland at the time 
of the settlement. 

10. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that 
though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, 
yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious 
silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of 
pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the 
stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, 
whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains 
like rumbling peals of thunder. 


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11. As Kip and his companion approached them, they 
suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with 
such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, 
lack-luster countenances, that his heart turned within 
him, and his knees smote together. His companion now 
emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and 
made signs to him to wait upon the company. He 
obeyed with fear and trembling. They quaffed the liquor 
in profound silence, and then returned to their game. 

12. By degrees Kip’s awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to 
taste the beverage, which he found had much the flavor 
of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, 
and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste 
provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the 
flagon so often, that at length his senses were overpowered, 
his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, 
and he fell into a deep sleep. 

Washington Irving. 

For Preparation.— I. Have you read Irving’s “ Sketch-Book ” (famous 
for its beautiful style) ? Where is the scene of this piece laid ?—tell by 
the river and mountains. In what period of history ? (old Colonial times, 
after the accession of George III., in 1760). What are the “ Highlands” ? 

II. Squir'-rel (skwlr'rei or skwur'rel), fa-tigued' (-teegd'), hal-loo'-ing, 
as-^Snd'-ed, draught (draft). 

III. Meaning of re and ed in reechoed? —of in and ible in incompre- 
hensi&fc ? 

IV. Explain knoll, skulked, grizzled, jerkin, alacrity, transient, amphi¬ 
theatre, doublets, hanger, uncouth, lack-luster, flagons, “ eyes swam in his 
head.” 

V. What connection between Rip’s habit of drinking and the occur¬ 

rences in the mountain is hinted at ? Is a popular explanation of the thun¬ 
der in the mountains intended in verse 10? “ Excellent Hollands ” (gin). 

Compare a verse of this piece with verses selected from XIII., LII., and 
LXXXV., and make a note of the differences in style, and in the mode of 
viewing the subject on the part of the author. 



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283 


XCIV.—RIP VAN WINKLE’S RETURN. 

1. On waking, lie found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He 
rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The 
birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, 
and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure 
mountain breeze. “ Surely,” thought Rip, “ I have not 
slept here all night.” He recalled the occurrences be¬ 
fore he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of 
liquor—the mountain ravine—the wild retreat among 
the rocks—the woe-begone party at ninepins—the flagon. 
“ Oh! that flagon—that wicked flagon ! ” thought Rip; 
“ what excuse shall I make to Dame Yan Winkle? ” 

2. He looked round for his gun; but in place of the 
clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock 
lying beside him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock 
falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected 
that the grave roisters of the mountain had put a trick 
upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had 
robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared; 
but he might have strayed after a squirrel or partridge. 
He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in 
vain ; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no 
dog was to be seen. 

3. lie determined to revisit the scene of the last 
evening’s gambol, and, if he met with any of the party, 
to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he 
found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his 
usual activity. “ These mountain beds do not agree 
with me,” thought Rip; “ and, if this frolic should lay 
me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a 
blessed time with Dame Yan Winkle.” With some 


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difficulty lie got down into the glen; he found the gully 
up which he and his companion had ascended the pre¬ 
ceding evening; hut, to his astonishment, a mountain 
stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to 
rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, 
however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his 
toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch- 
hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild 
grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree 
to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path. 

4. At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliff to the amphitheater; but no 
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented 
a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came 
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a 
broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the sur¬ 
rounding forest. Here, then, poor Hip was brought to a 
stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he 
was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows 
sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a 
sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, 
seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man’s per¬ 
plexities. What was to be done ? The morning was pass¬ 
ing away, and Hip felt famished for want of his break¬ 
fast. He grieved to give up his dog and his gun ; he 
dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve 
among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered 
the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and 
anxiety, turned his steps homeward. 

5. As he approached the village he met a number of 
people, but none whom he knew; which somewhat sur¬ 
prised him, for he had thought himself acquainted wfith 
every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of 


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285 


a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. 
They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and, 
whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably 
stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this 
gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, 
to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot 
long! 

6. He had now entered the skirts of the village. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after 
him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not 
one of which he recognized for an old acquaintance, 
barked at him as he passed. The very village was al¬ 
tered ; it was larger and more populous. There were 
rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those 
which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. 
Strange names were over the doors, strange faces at the 
windows—everything was strange. His mind now mis¬ 
gave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the 
world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was 
his native village, which he had left but the day before. 
There stood the Kaatskill Mountains; there ran the sil¬ 
ver Hudson at a distance; there was every hill and dale 
precisely as it had always been. Rip was sorely per¬ 
plexed. “That flagon last night,” thought he, “has 
addled my poor head sadly ! ” 

I. It was with some difficulty that he found the way 
to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, 
expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame 
Yan Winkle. He found the house gone to decay, the 
roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off 
the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf 
was skulking about. Rip called him by name, but the 
cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was 


286 


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an unkind cut indeed. “ My very dog,” sighed poor Kip, 
“ has forgotten -me ! ” 

8. He entered the house—which, to tell the truth, 
Dame Yan Winkle had always kept in neat order. It 
was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. The 
desolateness overcame all his connubial fears. He called 
loudly for his wife and children : the lonely chambers 
rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again 
was silence. 

9. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old re¬ 
sort, the village inn ; but it, too, was gone. A large, 
rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great 
gaping windows, some of them broken and mended with 
old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, 
“The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.” Instead of 
the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch 
inn of yore, there was now reared a tall, naked pole, with 
something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, 
and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular 
assemblage of stars and stripes. All this was strange and 
incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, 
the ruby face of King George, under which he had 
smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even this was 
singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed 
for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand 
instead of a scepter, the head was decorated with a 
cocked hat, and underneath was painted, in large charac¬ 
ters, “General Washington.” 


For Preparation. —I. The sleep of Rip Yan Winkle had lasted from a 
few years before the war of the Revolution to a period after the formation 
of the Constitution—say from 1770 to 1790. Collect the expressions in 
the piece which determine the date. “ Tory ” (a citizen of America who 
adhered to the cause of Great Britain during the revolutionary struggle). 



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287 


IT. Liq'-uor (lik'ur), woe'-be-gone, gam'-bol, rheu'-ma-ti§m (ru'-), 
mftr'-mur, s^Sp'-ter, ra-vine'. 

III. Why is the form an used before old acquaintance (6), and a before 
foot long (6) ? 

IV. Incrusted, roisters, tendrils, forlorn, abandoned, desolateness, meta¬ 
morphosed. Paraphrase in your own words: “ The constant recurrence 
of this gesture induced Rip involuntarily to do the same.” 

V. Point out the passages of the piece which you think most notable 
for a graceful style. 


XCV.—RIP VAN WINKLE’S RECOGNITION. 

1. Tlie appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled 
beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an 
army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted 
the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded 
round him, eying him from head to foot with great 
curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing 
him partly aside, inquired “on which side he voted.” 
Rip stared in vacant stupidity. 

2. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him 
by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear 
“ whether he was Federal or Democrat.” Rip was 
equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a 
knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked 
hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to 
the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and plant¬ 
ing himself before Yan Winkle, with one arm akimbo, 
the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp 
hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded, 
in an austere tone, “ what brought him to the election 
with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and 
whether he meant to breed a riot in the village.” 
“Alas! gentlemen,” cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, “I 



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am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal 
subject of the king—God bless him ! ” 

3. Here a general shout burst from the by-standers : 
“ A tory! a tory ! a spy! a refugee! Hustle him ! away 
with him! ” It was with great difficulty that the self- 
important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, 
having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded 
again of the unknown culprit what he came there for 
and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly as¬ 
sured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there 
in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep 
about the tavern. 

4. “ Well, who are they? Name them.” 

Kip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, 
“ Where’s Nicholas Yedder ? ” 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old 
man replied, in a thin, piping voice : “Nicholas Yedder! 
Why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There 
was a wooden tombstone in the church-yard that used to 
tell all about him, but that’s rotten and gone, too.” 

“ Where’s Brom Dutcher ? ” 

5. “ Oh! he went off to the army in the beginning of 
the war. Some say he was killed at the storming of Stony 
Point; others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot 
of Anthony’s Nose. I don’t know. He never came back 
again.” 

“Where’s Yan Bummel, the schoolmaster?” 

“ He went off to the wars, too—was a great militia 
general, and is now in Congress.” 

6. Kip’s heart died away at hearing of these sad 
changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus 
alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by 


FIFTH READER. 


289 


treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters 
which he could not understand—war, Congress, Stony 
Point. He had no courage to ask after any more friends, 
but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here know Rip 
Van Winkle?” 

“Oh, Rip Yan Winkle!” exclaimed two or three. 
“ Oh, to be sure! that’s Rip Yan Winkle yonder, leaning 
against the tree.” 

7. Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself as he went up the mountain—apparently as lazy, 
and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now com¬ 
pletely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and 
whether he was himself or another man. In the midst 
of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded 
who he was, and what was his name. 

8. “God knows!” exclaimed he, at his wits’ end: 
“ I’m not myself—I’m somebody else—that’s me yonder— 
no, that’s somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself 
last night, but I fell asleep on the mountains, and they’ve 
changed my gun, and everything’s changed, and I’m 
changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name or who lam!” 

9. The bystanders began now to look at each other, 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their 
foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the 
gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief; at 
the very suggestion of which the self-important man in 
the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. 

10. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman 
pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray- 
bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, 
which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. “Hush, 
Rip,” cried she, “ hush, you little fool! the old man 

13 


290 


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won’t hurt you.” The name of the child, the air of the 
mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of 
recollections in his mind. “ What is your name, my good 
woman ? ” asked he. 

“ Judith Gardenier.” • 

“ And your father’s name \ ” 

11. “ Ah, poor man! Rip Van Winkle was his name, 
but it’s twenty years since he went away from home with 
his gun, and never has been heard of since. His dog came 
home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was 
carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then 
but a little girl.” 

Rip had but one question more to ask, but he put it 
with a faltering voice: 

“ Where’s your mother \ ” 

“ Oh, she too died but a short time since; she broke 
a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a Hew-England ped¬ 
dler.” 

12. There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this in¬ 
telligence. The honest man could contain himself no 
longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his 
arms. “I am your father!” cried he—“young Rip Van 
Winkle once, old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody 
know poor Rip Van Winkle \ ” 

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out 
from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and, 
peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed: 
“Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle—it is himself! 
Welcome home again, old neighbor! Why, where have 
you been these twenty long years \ ” 

13. Rip’s story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors 


FIFTH READER. 


291 


stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at 
each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the 
self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the 
alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down 
the corners of his mouth, and shook his head; upon which 
there was a general shaking of the head throughout the 
assemblage. Washington Irving. 


For Preparation. — I. Point out, on the map of New York, Stony Point 
(fortified by the Americans, but taken from them by the British, and again 
retaken by the Americans led by Wayne); Anthony’s Nose (north entrance 
of the Highlands, fifty-seven miles above New York). “Cocked hat” (the 
American patriots turned up the brims of their hats). 

II. Tomb'-stone (tdom'-), pilz'-zled (-zid), p&d'-dler. 

III. Find in the above piece the examples of the use of a hyphen at the 
end of a line when it became necessary to divide a word, and explain in each 
case the reason for the division of the word at the letter selected. 

IV Austere, culprit, penetrating, enormous, counterpart, apparently 
confounded. Paraphrase, in your own words, “ He doubted his own iden¬ 
tity.” “ Wink significantly,” bewilderment, precipitation, comely, akimbo, 
faltering. 

V. What is the attitude assumed by the author in this story—that of 
simple narrator, that of critical or skeptical historian, or that of the humor¬ 
ist who enjoys his silent laugh at the expense of the characters he describes ? 
Characterize the author as well as you can from the specimens of his style 
given in these extracts. Compare him with Swift (Lessons L., LIII., LVII., 
in the Fourth Reader), De Foe (Lessons XIX. and XXV. of the same). 


XCVI.—BANNOCKBURN. 

1. At Bannockburn the English lay— 

The Scots they were na’ far away, 

But waited for the break o’ day 

That glinted in the East. 




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2. But soon the sun broke through the heath, 
And lighted up that field o’ death, 

When Bruce, wi’ saul-inspiring breath, 

His heralds thus addressed: 

3. u Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, 

Scots wham Bruce has aften led, 

Welcome to your gory bed, 

Or to victorie! 

4. “ How’s the day, and now’s the hour; 

See the front o’ battle lower! 

See approach proud Edward’s power— 
Chains and slaverie! 

5. “ Wha will he a traitor knave ? 

Wha can fill a coward’s grave ? 

Wha sae base as be a slave ? 

Let him turn and flee ! 

6. “ Wha for Scotland’s king and law 
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa’, 

Let him follow me! 

7. “ By oppression’s woes and pains, 

By your sens in servile chains, 

We will drain our dearest veins, 

But they shall be free! 

8. “ Lay the proud usurper low ! 

Tyrants fall in every foe ! 

Liberty’s in every blow! 

Let us do, or die! ” 


FIFTH READER. 


293 


For Preparation.—I. “ Bannockburn ” (the site of Bruce’s great victory 
over Edward II., 1314). Find this place on the map. Robert Burns com¬ 
posed this celebrated ode in 1793. Speaking of a tradition to the effect 
that the air to which he composed it was Robert Bruce’s march at the 
battle of Bannockburn, he says : “ This thought in my yesternight’s even¬ 
ing walk warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and 
independence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode, that one might 
suppose to be the royal Scot’s address to his heroic followers on that event¬ 
ful morning.” 

II. Heath (pronounced h£th in Scotland;—(in 2) it rhymes with 
death and Ireath; die is (in 8) pronounced dee), veing, u-gfirp'-er 
(s for z), ty'-rants, foe, sword (sord). Hae (hay) ; wha (aw) ; fa. 

III. Make a list of the Scotch words and contractions, and write op¬ 
posite each its English equivalent (e. g., na = no; glinted = peeped ; 6aul 
= soul; o’ = of, etc. 

IV. Gory, servile, heralds, usurper. 

Y. Note the rhyme of the last words in the stanzas : East, addressed ; 
victorie, slaverie ; flee, me ; free, die. Note also the alliteration: do, die : 
lay, low; fall, foe; wha, wi’; wham, welcome, etc. Carlyle says of this 
poem: “ As long as there is blood in the heart of Scotchman or man, it 
will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode—the best, we believe, that 
ever was written by any pen.” 


XCVII.—'THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

1. When the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly 
up, as that it hath not only wherewithal to guard well its 
own freedom and safety, but to spare and to bestow upon 
the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and new 
invention, it betokens us, not degenerated nor drooping 
to a fatal decay, but casting oif the old and wrinkled skin 
of corruption, to outlive these pangs, and wax young 
again; entering the glorious ways of truth and virtue, des¬ 
tined to become great and honorable in these latter ages. 

2. Methinks I see, in my mind, a noble and puissant 
nation rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and 



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shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an 
eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her en- 
dazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and un¬ 
sealing her long-abused sight, at the fountain itself of 
heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous 
flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flut¬ 
ter about, amazed at what she means, and would prog¬ 
nosticate a year of sects and schisms. 

3. Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to 
play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do in¬ 
juriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to doubt her 
strength. 

4. Let her and Falsehood grapple. Who ever 
knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open en¬ 
counter? Her confuting is the best and surest sup¬ 
pressing. Who knows not that Truth is strong, next 
to the Almighty ? 

5. She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licens¬ 
ings, to make her victorious: those are the shifts and 
defences that Error uses against her power. 

6. Give her but room, and do not bind her when she 
sleeps; for then she speaks not true, but then, rather, she 
turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps 
tunes her voice according to the tune, as Micaiah did 
before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. 

John Milton. 


For Preparation. —I. Milton’s prose style is esteemed for its strength, 
grace, and intellectual solidity. “Micaiah before Ahab” (1 Kings xxii.). 

II. In-ju'-ri-oiis-ly, false'-hood, vi-e-to'-ri-oiis, Sr'-ror, cheer'-ful- 
ness, where-with-al' (hwer-), wrink'-led (rink'ld), en-daz'-zled (-rid), tim'- 
o-roiis, twl'-light (-lit). 



FIFTH READER. 


293 


III. Write a receipt in full , after the following form: 

New York, August 22, 1877. 

Received of John Murray, Agent of the Atlantic Insurance Company, 
Three Hundred and Twenty-five Ho Dollars, in full of balance on settlement. 

$325-jVo. Theodore Harris. 

IV. Discussion, “ winds of doctrine,” “ licensing and prohibiting,” en¬ 
counter, policies, stratagems, adjured, controversy, betokens, puissant, 
“ shaking her invincible locks,” prognosticate, “ sects and schisms.” 

V. “ By licensing and prohibiting, to doubt her strength,” etc. (i. e., by 
prohibiting free discussion, or by requiring licenses for it, we act as if 
we doubted the ability of Truth to stand free discussion, and thus we do 
harm). “ So sprightly up ” (spiritedly). 


XCV1II.—POETIC READING. 

V.-IMPERFECT OR UNACCENTED FEET. 

Used to accommodate the Sense. 

“ The min'- | strel was | infirm' | and old'.” 

The second foot in this line has no natural accent 
(that is, would have none in prose reading), and, as it has 
no long syllable, is wanting in metric time also. The 
pause after “ minstrel,” called the “ caesura,” separates 
the two short syllables of this foot; and it should be 
passed over lightly in reading, with only a very delicate 
metric accent, if any, on “ was.” Such feet are meas¬ 
ured, so far as they are measured at all, by time in the 
form of rest after the short syllables, as in music. 

To attempt to make this foot equal in accent to the 
other feet, would be offensive sing-song; as, 

u The min'- | strel was' | infirm' | and old'.” 

“ The last' | of all' | the bards' | was he', 

To sing' | of bor'- | der chiv'- | airy.” 



296 


FIFTH READER. 


“ Untwist'- | ing all' | the chains' | that tie' 

The hid'- | den soul' | of har'- | mony.” 

The last feet in these couplets from Scott and Milton 
are wanting in accent and time, as well as in perfect 
rhyme, and the reader must not attempt to mend them 
by changing the words to “ chivalry ” and “ harmony.” 
We may find the same defective foot in Shakespeare 
occasionally, as in the second foot of the opening line of 
Portia’s speech in “ The Merchant of Yenice ” : 

“ The qual'- | ity | of mer'- | cy is' | not strained';” 

or in the third foot of this line from Tennyson’s “ Ode 
on the Death of Wellington ” : 

“ In' his | simplic'- | ity | sublime'.” 

Such feet are used for the sake of the words which 
best express the poet’s thoughts, as the idea is more im¬ 
portant than the measure; and the reader is not called 
on to show more wit in rendering, than the author has 
in writing, such lines. 

But these unaccented feet are the rare exceptions, re¬ 
member, and when read as they are written, to accommo¬ 
date the sense, may serve, like the irregular feet, to break 
the monotony of the full measure. 

VI.- EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT METERS. 

“ The Sky-Lark,” by Shelley, is written in stanzas of 
five lines. Four have the metre of three feet y 2 xA the 
fifth is a double line of six feet. The standard meas¬ 
ure is “ dissyllabic ,” with the accent on the first syllable 
in the foot (i trochaic ), which changes to the last syllable 
in most of the longer lines, and elsewhere often enough 
to give rhythmic variety. 


FIFTH READER. 


297 


“ Hail' to thee, | blithe' | spir'it— 

Bird' thou | nev'er | wert'— 

That' from | heaven', or | near' it, 

Pour'est thy | full' | heart' 

In' pro-1 fuse' strains | of un'-1 premed'-1 itat'-1 ed art'! ” 

The feet in the third line only are regular, with two 
syllables in each foot, and the accent on the ^ 7 ^. 

Note the feet in the first and fourth lines. The first 
foot has three syllables , and the second, one. Mark how the 
accent brings two long accented syllables together (in sepa¬ 
rate feet), and thus gives & peculiar dignity to the rhythm. 
This occurs in several other lines in the poem; as, 

“ The blue' \ deep' thou | wing'est.” 

“ The pale' [ ^w'ple | e'ven.” 

“ In' the | broad' \ day' light.” 

“ From one' | lone'\y cloud'.” 

“ Bet'ter | than all' \ meas' ures.” 

“ The moon' | rains' out | her beams'.” 

A whole line is sometimes made of the monosyllabic 
foot, as in Hood’s “ Song of the Shirt ” : 

“ Work', | work', | work', 

Till the brain' | begins' | to swim'.” 

The line has the three regular accents of the line fol¬ 
lowing it, and should be read in the same time. The 
metre is three feet , dissyllabic measure. When such 
monosyllabic feet are made of a syllable which cannot, in 
good taste, be prolonged, the time of the standard meas¬ 
ure must be filled out by a rest after the word. Its un¬ 
relieved monotony fitly “ echoes the sense ” of the dolo¬ 
rous song. So, too, in Tennyson’s 

“ Break', | break', | break', 

On thy cold', | gray stones', | O sea'! ” 


298 


FIFTH READER. 


The three emphatic syllables must fill, by quantity 
and rest , the metric time of the line which follows them. 
The monotone of the recurring waves, and of the poet’s 
tender grief, is most effectively expressed by this repeated 
“ monosyllabic foot.” 

Lines of more than five feet are usually but com¬ 
binations of two shorter lines; as in Macaulay’s “ Battle 
of Ivry ”: 

“ Now glo'ry to' the Lord' of hosts', from whom' all glo'- 
ries are',” 

of seven dissyllabic feet, with the accent on the last 
syllable. It might as well have been printed in lines of 
four and three feet ; as, 

u And glo'ry to' our sov'reign liege', 

King Henry of' Navarre'!” 

Tennyson’s “ Locksley Hall ” is written in long lines 
of fifteen syllables, with “ seven dissyllabic feet ” and 
one “ monosyllabic foot,” accent on the first (trochaic). 

“ Com'rades, leave' me here' a lit'tle, while' as yet' ’tis 
ear'ly morn'.” 

But this is the same measure as two lines of four 
feet meter; as thus, 

“ Yet' I doubt' not through' the a'ges 
One' increasing pur'pose runs', 

And' the thoughts' of men' are wi'dened 
With' the pro'cess of' the suns'.” 

In this same rhythm and meter “ The Raven,” by 
Poe, is written, except that the long lines (or two short 
ones) have sixteen syllables. 


FIFTH READER. 


299 


vn.— THE C^SURAL PAUSE. 

The pause which usually separates one line from 
another, and which often comes in the middle of a line, 
is not an arbitrary part of verse, but simply the natural 
pause, used in prose as well, which separates important 
ideas. This pause, called “ the Caesura ” (the break, or 
rest), is not to be counted in the metric time of the feet. 
Its length depends on the emphasis and the indepen¬ 
dence of the ideas. 

When a poem is very regular in rhythm, as “The 
Raven ” and “Locksley Hall” are (that is, when the num¬ 
ber of syllables and the accent of the feet are but rarely 
changed), this pause after the emphatic ideas is of very 
great use in calling the attention away from the too regu¬ 
lar measure, and fixing it on the sense. 

As an example of a pleasing variety of meter, read 
“ Ye Mariners of England,” by Campbell. It is composed 
in stanzas of ten lines. Six of them are in three feet 
meter, three of them in four feet , and one line—the sev¬ 
enth—is in the meter of two feet. This seventh line 
has the trisyllabic measure, and rhythm also; while the 
standard measure is dissyllabic, with the accent on the 
last syllable: 

“Ye mariners' of England, 

That guard' our na'tive seas', 

Whose flag' has braved', a thou'sand years', 

The bat'tie and' the breeze', 

Your glo'rious stand'ard launch' again', 

To match' anoth'er foe'! 

And sweep' through the deep', 

While the storm'y winds' do blow'; 

While the bat'tie ra'ges loud' and long', 

And the storm'y winds' do blow'.” 


300 


FIFTH READER. 


XCIX.—PUCK AND THE FAIRY. 

Puck —How now, Spirit—whither wander yon % 

Fairy —Over hill, over dale, 

Thorough bush, thorough brier, 

Over park, over pale, 

Thorough flood, thorough fire, 

I do wander everywhere, 

Swifter than the moones sphere; 

And I serve the fairy queen, 

To dew her orbs upon the green; 

The cowslips tall her pensioners be ; 

In their gold coats spots you see ; 

Those be rubies, fairy favors ; 

In those freckles live their savors. 

I must go seek some dew-drops here, 

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. 
Farewell, thou lob of spirits! I’ll be gone; 
Our queen and all her elves come here anon. 

Puck —The king doth keep his revels here to-night: 
Take heed the queen come not within his sight; 

For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, 

Because that she, as her attendant, hath 
A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king: 

She never had so sweet a changeling ; 

And jealous Oberon would have the child 
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild ; 

But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy, 

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy : 
And now they never meet in grove, or green, 

By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen, 

But they do square ; that all their elves, for fear, 
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there. 



Puck and the Fairy 


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SOI 


Fairy —Either I mistake your shape and making quite, 
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite 
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he 
That frights the maidens of the villagery, 

Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern, 

And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn, 

And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm, 
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm ? 

Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, 

You do their work, and they shall have good luck. 

Are you not he ? 

Puck — Fairy, thou speak’st aright: 

I am that merry wanderer of the night. 

I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, 

When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, 

Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: 

And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, 

In very likeness of a roasted crab, 

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, 

And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. 

The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, 

Sometimes for three-foot stool mistaketh me ; 

Then slip I from beneath, down topples she, 

And “ tailor ” cries, and falls into a cough, 

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh, 
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear 
A merrier hour was never wasted there.— 

But room, Fairy—here comes Oberon ! 

Fairy —And here my mistress !—Would that he were 

gone ! William Shakespeare. 

For Preparation.—I. From the “ Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” Act II., 
Scene 1. Puck serves the king, and the Fairy serves the queen of fairies. 
The king and queen are quarreling, and separate ; Puck and the Fairy meet 



302 


FIFTH HEADER. 


suddenly, as they are on errands for their superiors. “ Cowslip’s ear ” 
(cow’s-lip). The English cowslip differs how from the American ? 

II. Wan'-der, -e6ugh (kawf), m&r'-ri-er, neigh'-ing (na'-), sp&n'-gled 

(spdng'gld). 

III. Note the old English thorough for through , moones for moon's. (Here 
is an example of the use of the es denoting possession, which we always 
write’s, omitting the e). Note, the meter requires two syllables in moon-es , 
and also in lov-ed (es and ed marked with ' to show that they are to be pro¬ 
nounced as separate syllables). 

IV. Pensioners, rubies, savors, “ lob of spirits ” (clown of spirits), 
“ passing fell ” (surpassingly malicious). 

V. “ Cowslips tall ”•—are cowslips tall flowers ? One editor of Shake¬ 
speare has suggested that we read all for tall. “ Gold coats ”—an editor 
suggests, “in their gold cups, spots you see.” The original words that 
Shakespeare wrote are doubtful in many places ; it is so easy for mistakes 
to be made in copying manuscripts, or in printing them. “ They do square ” 
(i. e., draw up in opposite lines to quarrel). “ Labor in the quern ” (in the 
hand-mill, when it does not grind well). “ No barm ” (no yeast—i. e., does 
not ferment well). “ Dewlap ” (throat). “ Roasted crab ” (apple). “ Neeze ” 
(sneeze). “ Filly foal ” (female colt). 


C.—THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUN. 

1. As surely as the force which moves a clock’s hands 
is derived from the arms which wind up the clock, so 
surely is all terrestrial power drawn from the sun. Leav¬ 
ing out of account the eruptions of volcanoes, and the 
ebb and flow of the tides, every mechanical action on the 
earth’s surface, every manifestation of power, organic 
and inorganic, vital and physical, is produced by the sun. 
His warmth keeps the sea liquid, and the atmosphere a 
gas, and all the storms which agitate both are blown by 
the mechanical force of the sun. 

2. lie lifts the rivers and the glaciers up to the moun¬ 
tains ; and thus the cataract and the avalanche shoot with 



FIFTH READER. 


303 


an energy derived immediately from him. Thunder and 
lightning are also his transmitted strength. Every fire 
that burns, and every flame that glows, dispenses light 
and heat which originally belonged to the sun. 

3. In these days, unhappily, the news of battle is 
familiar to us; but every shock, and every charge, is an 
application, or misapplication, of the mechanical force of 
the sun. He blows the trumpet, he urges the projectile, 
he bursts the bomb. And remember, this is not poetry, 
but rigid mechanical truth. 

4. He rears, as I have said, the whole vegetable 
world, and through it the animal; the lilies of the field 
are his workmanship; the verdure of the meadows, and 
the cattle upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscle, 
he urges the blood, he builds the brain. His fleetness is 
in the lion’s foot; he springs in the panther; he soars in 
the eagle; he slides in the snake. 

5. He builds the forest, and hews it down—the power 
which raised the tree and which wields the ax being 
one and the same. The clover sprouts and blossoms, 
and the scythe of the mower swings by the operation of 
the same force. The sun digs the ore from our mines; 
he rolls the iron, he rivets the plates, he boils the water, 
he draws the train. 

6 . He not only grows the cotton, but he spins the 
fiber and weaves the web. There is not a hammer raised, 
a wheel turned, or a shuttle thrown, that is not raised, 
and turned, and thrown by the sun. His energy is poured 
freely into space, but our world is a halting-place where 
this energy is conditioned. 

7. Here the Proteus works his spells; the self-same 
essence takes a million shapes and hues, and finally dis- 


304 


FIFTH READER. 


solves into its primitive and almost formless form. The 
sun comes to us as heat; he quits us as heat; and between 
his entrance and departure the multiform powers of our 
globe appear. They are all special forms of solar power 
—the mould into which his strength is temporarily poured, 
in passing from its source through infinitude. 

8 . Presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and 
generalizations of modern science constitute a poem more 
sublime than has ever yet been addressed to the intellect 
and imagination of man. The natural philosopher of to¬ 
day may dwell amid conceptions which beggar those of 
Milton. So great and grand are they, that, in the con¬ 
templation of them, a certain force of character is requisite 
to preserve us from bewilderment. 

9. Look at the integrated energies of our world—the 
stored power of our coal-fields; our winds and rivers; our 
fleets, armies, and guns. What are they ? They are all 
generated by a portion of the sun’s energy, which does not 
amount to an infinitesimal part of the whole. Multiply¬ 
ing our pow r ers by millions of millions, we do not reach 
the sun’s expenditure. 

10 . And still, notwithstanding this enormous drain, 
in the lapse of human history we are unable to detect a 
diminution of his store. Measured by our largest terres¬ 
trial standards, such a reservoir of power is infinite ; but 
it is our privilege to rise above these standards, and to 
regard the sun himself as a speck in infinite extension— 
a mere drop in the universal sea. 

11 . We analyze the space in which he is immersed, 
and which is the vehicle of his power. We pass to other 
systems and other suns, each pouring forth energy like 
our own, but still without infringement of the law which 


FIFTH READER . 


305 


reveals immutability in the midst of change, which recog¬ 
nizes incessant transference and conversion, but neither 
final gain nor loss. 

12 . This law generalizes the aphorism of Solomon, 
that there is “ nothing new under the sun,” by teaching us 
to detect everywhere, under its infinite variety of appear¬ 
ances, the same primeval force. To Nature nothing can 
be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the 
sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can 
do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the application 
of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the 
never-varying total, and out of one of them to form an¬ 
other. 

13. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both 
creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, 
and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for 
number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may ag¬ 
gregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae 
and faunae, and florae and faunae melt in air : the flux of 
power is eternally the same. 

14. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terres¬ 

trial energy—the manifestations of life, as well as the 
display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its 
rhythm. ’ John Tyndall. 

For Preparation.—I. “ To Nature nothing can be added; the sum of 
her energies is constant ” (referring to the law of the correlation of forces, 
by which it is shown that each force, in acting, passes over into some other 
one equivalent to it, and the amount of force remains as before, although 
taking on a new form). “ Florae and faunae ” (plants and animals); “ aste¬ 
roids ” (small planets discovered between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter). 

II. V61--ea'-noeg, liq'-uid (lik'wid), ag'-i-tate, gla'-^er (-seer), av'-a- 
langhe, Sn'-a-lyze, ve'-hi-ele (-hi-ki), apli'-o-rigm, pur-suit' (-sut'), 
wieldg, scythe, fi'-berg, dig-gblveg', phe-nSm'-e-na. 



306 


FIFTH READER. 


III. Correct the following: “ The book is her’s ; ” “ The sled is our’s; ” 
“It’s runner is broken;” “Give me yourn;” “Ourn is played out.” (Cor¬ 
rect vulgarisms or slang, as well as incorrect forms.) 

IV. Terrestrial, eruptions, manifestation, organic, projectile, bomb, 
rigid, verdure, energy, infinitesimal, expenditure, lapse, diminution, reser¬ 
voir, extension, immersed, infringement, immutability, incessant, general¬ 
izes, primeval, energies, constituents, annihilation, shuttle, essence, consti¬ 
tute, bewilderment, integrated, magnitude, substituted, aggregate, modula¬ 
tion. 

V. How does he “ lift the rivers and glaciers up to the mountains ” (2) ? 
The chief thought of this piece is the doctrine of the correlation of forces, 
and the dependence of all upon the sun. No force is ever lost; it simply 
changes form. When it loses itself as heat, it becomes some other form of 
force—as motion in space, for example. In the locomotive we burn fuel, 
and transfer the heat, through the steam, to motion of the train of cars; 
the motion of the train of cars ceases, and the force expended in its mo¬ 
tion has all been converted into another kind of force again—perhaps into 
heat once more, through the friction of wheels, axles, rails, air, etc., and 
the vibrations imparted to them. So light, heat, electricity, magnetism, 
are kinds of force which continually pass over into each other, or into 
other kinds of force. If attraction of gravitation is the chief store-house 
of energy of one kind, and heat is the other, we can see how all lifting is 
done by heat (evaporation, volcanic action, expansion of various kinds), and 
how gravitation effects all contractions and causes all falling motions, or 
such as tend to the centre of the earth. If the sun is the cause of all heat, 
then it is the source of all upheaving forces; if it is also the cause of 
the earth’s gravitation, it is likewise the cause of all falling motion and 
contraction. 


Cl.—POETIC READING. 

VIII.-METRIC REGULARITY AND RHYTHMIC VARIETY. 

The poems which have charmed the most and the 
longest have great rhythmic variety, such as “ The Burial 
of Sir Thomas Moore,” by Charles Wolfe. 

While the meter of four and three feet, in alternate 
lines, is never broken, or even marred, the rhythm 
changes to almost every form the metric time will allow. 



FIFTH READER. 


307 


Tlie standard measure is “trisyllabic.” The preva¬ 
lent foot has the accent on the last of the three syllables. 

“ Not a drum' | was heard 7 , | nor a fun'- | eral note', 

As his corse' | to the ram'- | part we hur'ried; 

Not a sol'- | dier discharged' | his fare'- | well shot', 
O’er the grave' | where our he'- | ro we bur'ied.” 

Yet the second foot has hut two syllables; and the 
second and fourth lines end with a foot of four sylla¬ 
bles ; and the third line ends with two dissyllabic feet. 

“¥e bur'ied him dark'ly at dead' of night', 

The sod' with our bay'onets turn'ing, 

By the struggling moon'beam’s mist'y light', 

And the lan'tern dim'ly burn'ing.” 

In the second verse, the first line begins and ends with 
a foot of two syllables. The second line begins with a 
foot of two syllables, has the regular foot in the middle, 
and ends with a foot of four syllables. The third line 
has three of its four feet dissyllabic. The fourth line 
has two syllables for its second foot, and its last has the 
middle accent. 

“Few' | and short' | were the prayers' | we said'.” 

In this line, but one foot—the third—keeps to the eye 
the standard form and “ trisyllabic measure.” But poetry 
must be measured by the ear , and the natural emphasis of 
time required by the monosyllabic foot “few” fills the 
measure to the ear. 

“ Light'ly | they’ll talk' | of the spir'- | it that’s gone', 
And o’er' his | cold ash'es | upbraid' him; 

But lit'tle | he’ll reck', | if they let' | him sleep on', 

In the grave' | where a Brit'on | has laid' him.” 


308 


FIFTH READER. 


In the first foot of this verse—“ Lightly ”—we have 
a double change from the “ standard foot.” It has but 
two syllables , and the accent is on the first. The second 
syllable of this first foot is very short, yet, as this is the 
emphatic word of the line, the sense requires the length¬ 
ened time on “ Light which fills the measure. In the 
second foot—“ they'll talk ”—the two syllables are both 
long , and so naturally equal in time to the ordinary three 
(one long and two short). 

In the second line, 

“ And o’er' his | cold ash'es | upbraid' him,” 

the three feet are regular in the number and length of 
their syllables, but the accent falls on the middle one of 
the three. The first foot of the third line also has the 
middle accent, and the second foot— “he'll reck ”—is an¬ 
other of two long syllables in place of the “ regular three.” 
The second foot of the last line—“ where a Briton ”—has 
four syllables, and the last foot has the middle accent. 

Yet, through all these changes, the same faultless 
measure flows. Indeed, in nearly every line of this 
famous poem we may find some felicitous changes of 
rhythm, which never fail to accord the sense and the 
metric time. 

It is from this happy union of metric regularity and 
rhythmic variety that such poems derive their double 
charm. In this rhythmic union of the sense and the 
measure lies the “ open secret ” of good poetic reading. 

IX.-SING-SONG AND ITS REMEDY. 

“ Machine poetry ,” as it is called, is written with re¬ 
gard for 66 meter ” only, and is therefore painfully regular. 
Sing-song in reading does what it can to turn good poetry 
into this same mechanical verse, by making the metric 


FIFTH HEADER. 


309 


accent too prominent, too uniform, and too regular, re¬ 
gardless of the varying sense and rhythm. 

But accent, as we have seen, is not the only or the 
most prominent part of poetic measure.* Nor is accent 
uniform in its degree of force. It must vary in loudness 
with every degree of emphasis, to suit the sense, and with 
the word- accent, and has but the very lightest degree of 
force when it is merely metric. 

Nor is accent always regular—that is, on the first, or 
last, or middle syllable of the successive feet—but, as we 
have seen in the quotations given, often varies, in part 
to accommodate the sense and language, and in part for 
the pleasure of rhythmic variety itself. 

TO AVOID SING-SONG. 

1. The metric accent must be subordinate to the logi¬ 
cal accent (the emphasis) and to the verbal accent; that 
is, the sense must be made more prominent than the 
meter. 

2. The rhythm, or hind of regular feet, with their 
equivalents and substitutes, must be minded more than 
the mere number of feet. 

* I know it has been so often written and repeated, “ that accent alone 
marks the genius of English verse,” and that quantity belongs exclusively 
to the classic poetry of Greece and Rome, that it is generally assumed to be 
true. But from this merely traditional authority we may safely appeal to 
the intrinsic nature of poetry as metric composition , and, still better, to any 
one with a good ear who will read aloud a few melodious lines, and prove 
for himself that the accent does not distinguish a “ monosyllabic ” from a 
“ dissyllabic ” or a “ trisyllabic foot ”—that it does not even measure the 
accented syllable itself, only so far as time is a part of accent. 

It is true, of course, that we cannot apply to English syllables the defi¬ 
nite rule of “ long and short quantity ” ; but we can and do measure our 
“ poetic feet ” by time in its double character, as quantity and rest , and by 
making the several “ groups ” of syllables in the different feet of the same 
measure equal to each other , as a whole, in time. —M. B. 


310 


FIFTH READER. 


3 . Equal and regular time must be given to the 
measure of “ equivalent feet,” rather than equal or regu¬ 
lar accent. 

4 . The imperfect or unaccented feet must be partially 
suppressed in reading. 

5. The general time and movement must be changed 
with the spirit of the lines, as in this line from “ The 
Battle of Waterloo”: 

“ Since' upon night' so sweet' such aw'ful morn' could 
rise'.” 

The faster movement of joy, in the first half of the 
“ hexameter,” changes to the slow time of dread and a/we , 
in the last half. 

But this need not disturb the metric regularity of 
associated feet, any more than the change of a march in 
music to faster or slower time disturbs the equable steps 
before or after it. 

Read a stanza from “Lord Ullin’s Daughter,” by 
Campbell. First, as it should not be, with uniform and 
regular accent. The meter is of “four” and “three” 
feet, in alternate lines; dissyllabic measure, with accent 
in the regular foot on the last syllable: 

“ A chieftain, to the Highlands, bound , 

Cries, ‘ Boatman, do not tarry, 

And Til give thee a silver pound, 

To row us o\er the ferry ! ’ ” 

Second, as it should be read—with the emphatic 
accent on “ chieftain ” and “ Highlands ” only, in the 
first line. Give “bound” only a very light metric ac¬ 
cent, as it is not an emphatic word, and linger on “ to,” 
in the unaccented foot, “ -tain, to,” just long enough to 
show the attentive ear that the meter is not wholly lost. 


FIFTH READER. 


311 


Note that the accent is changed in the first and second 
feet of the third line to the first syllable, and how agree¬ 
ably this varies the rhythm. The only other emphatic 
idea is the uncommon sum offered—“ a silver pound.” 
To row people o’er the ferry was the boatman’s common 
task, and so is not a differential or emphatic idea, and 
should receive, therefore, only the delicate metric ac¬ 
cent; as, 

“ A chief'- | tain, to | the High!- | lands bound', 

Cries, ‘ Boat'- | man, do' | not tar'rj, 

And' I’ll | give' thee | a siV- | ver pound', 

To row' | us o’er' | the fer'ry.’ ” 

Study the measure in Tennyson’s great “ Ode on 
the Death of Wellington.” The standard foot is dissyl¬ 
labic, with the meter of four feet in most of the lines, 
varying to five feet in a part of the after verses. The 
first line has but three feet. Mark the frequent use 
of the monosyllabic foot in the opening verse, and the 
simple dignity it gives, when read with slow time, to the 
rhythm. Note the long trisyllabic foot used in the fourth 
line (with one foot of four syllables), and the change of 
the accent in the fourth and seventh lines, and how 
naturally these rhythmic changes seem to wed the sense 
to the measure everywhere with that rare “art which 
conceals art.” 

“ Bur'y the | Great' | Duke' 

With' an | em'pirds | lam'en- | ta'tion! 

Let' us | bur'y the | Great' | Duke' 

To the noise' | of the mourn'ing | of a might'-1 y na'tion— 
Mourn'ing | when' their | lead'ers | fall'. 

War'riors | car'ry the | war'rior’s | pall', 

And sor'- | row dark'- | ens ham'- | let and hall'.” 


312 


FIFTH READER. 


X.-SUMMARY DIRECTIONS. 

I. Keep in mind, that poetry must be read with the 
natural speaking tones. 

II. The ideas, the sense , must be made to stand out 
as distinctly as in prose. 

III. The meter may be determined by the number of 
accented syllables in a line (except there be an unac¬ 
cented foot in the line). 

IY. The rhythm (with the same exception) may be 
determined by the number of the unaccented syllables, 
and the place of the accent in the feet, (a.) The “ preva¬ 
lent foot,” which gives the “ standard measure.” (b.) The 
“irregular feet,” used as substitutes. ( c .) The “unac¬ 
cented feet,” if any, to be read as written. ( d .) The 
“ changes of accent.” 

Y. That the sense , with all its rhythmic changes, must 
be read in the “ metric time ” of the “standard meas¬ 
ure.” That, when this cannot be done, the meter is poor, 
and may wisely be sacrificed to the sense. 

YI. In lines of doubtful rhythm or meter, follow the 
“ standard.” 

YII. Keep in mind, above all, that this special study 
of the “ musical part ” of poetry is only one of many pre¬ 
paratory steps toward good poetic reading; that to this 
must be added all the elements of good prose reading; 
and that these elements, though mastered separately, can 
be fused, at last, into the living whole of eloquent prose 
or poetic expression only by the imagination and sym¬ 
pathy of the READER. 


FIFTH READER. 


313 


Cll.—THE CORAL GROVE. 

1. Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove; 

Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, 
That never are wet with the falling dew, 

But in bright and changeful beauty shine, 

Far down in the green and glassy brine. 

2 . The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, 

And the pearl-shells spangle tbe flinty snow; 
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 

Their boughs, when the tides and billows flow. 
The water is calm and still below, 

For the winds and waves are absent there, 

And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 
In the motionless fields of upper air. 

3. There, with its waving blade of green, 

The sea-flag streams through the silent water, 
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter. 

4. There, with a light and easy motion, 

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; 
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 
Are bending like corn on the upland lea; 

5. And life in rare and beautiful forms 

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, 

And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms 
Has made the top of the waves his own. 

6 . And when the ship from his fury flies, 

When the myriad voices of ocean war, 

14 


314 


FIFTH READER. 


When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies, 
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore; 

7. Then, far below, in the peaceful sea, 

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove; 

Where the waters murmur tranquilly 

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove. 

James O. Per civ al. 


For Preparation. —I. The maimers and habits of the coral insect (or 
polyp rather; it is not an insect): Does it build its “ groves ” in the frigid 
zone ? (It is incorrect to say “ build,” for it merely leaves its skeleton when 
it dies, and this skeleton is the “ coral formation.”) What temperature 
must the water be for the coral insect to flourish ? What is the mullet ?— 
dulse? (reddish sea-weed, sometimes used for food.) Have you seen the 
“ fan-coral ” ? 

II. -GSr'-al, bough § (bouz), pearl (perl), slaugh'-ter (slaw'-), wrath'-ful 
(rath'-), change'-ful (why not changful?), pea^e'-ful (w T hy not peac- 
ful ?), tran'-quil-iy (trank'will'-) (n = ng). 

III. Correct: “I seen the animal who done it;” “the lady which gave me 
my dinner has did me a kindness;” “he warn’t there;” “you won’t do it.” 

IV. Spangle, lea, myriad, murky, brine, pearl-shells, sea-flower, “ bowers 
of stone.” 

V. “ Flinty snow ” (the deposit of flint-sand on the bottom of the ocean, 
resembling snow). “ Scarlet tufts of ocean” (tuft = head of flowers). How 
deep down (5) do the largest waves affect the ocean ? (A wave twenty 
feet high, according to theory, should produce slight effects two hundred feet 
deep.) “ Wind-god ” (6) (JEolus). Note the return to the lines, “ The 
purple mullet,” etc. (7), near the end, and the last line brings us back to 
“coral grove”—the ending of the first. Repetition of the same, or of the 
like, is the principle of poetic form. Repetition of time and accent and 
their combinations = rhythm, metre, and stanzas; repetition of sound = 
rhyme ; repetition of a phrase or line = refrain; repetition of sense is the 
Hebraic rhythm. (See CIII., note.) What is the tone of this piece—gay, 
or solemn ? Is there anything human about it ? or is it only inanimate 
matter—vegetable and brute life, and that, too, a low order of brute life— 
that is spoken of ? Is not the beauty described by the poet as existing in 
the deep sea, and the peace and tranquillity there, a very melancholy affair, 
without human beings—or even its semblance in the form of naiads or 
fairies ? 



FIFTH READER. 


31B 


Clll.—THE GLORY OF GOD. 

1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the 
firmament sheweth his handy-work. 

2. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night nnto 
night sheweth knowledge. 

3. There is no speech nor language, where their voice 
is not heard. 

4. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and 
their words to the end of the world. In them hath he 
set a tabernacle for the sun, 

5. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his cham¬ 
ber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 

6. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, 
and bis circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing 
hid from the heat thereof. 

Y. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise 
the simple. 

8. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the 
heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlight¬ 
ening the eyes. 

9. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: 
the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto¬ 
gether. 

10. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than 
much fine gold : sweeter also than honey and the honey¬ 
comb. 

11. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and 
in keeping of them there is great reward. 


316 


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12. Who can understand his errors ? cleanse thou me 
from secret faults. 

13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous 
sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall 
I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great 
transgression. 

14. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation 
of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my 
strength, and my redeemer. 

Psalm XIX. 


For Preparation.— I. The words in italics in this piece are printed as 
they are in the King James’s version of the Bible, and serve to mark words 
supplied by the translators to make the sense complete. 

II. Hand'-y-work (-wurk), kn<5wl'-edge (ndi'ej), $ir'-euit (-kit). 

III. The prefix dis (di) denotes movement asunder or apart; mis , moral 
divergence, error, or defect. Make a list of words with these prefixes. 
Mult (or multi ) means many; semi , demi , mean half of or in part; hi 
(and his\ twice. Form a list of words having these prefixes. 

IV. Declare, uttereth, line, tabernacle, converting, testimony, statutes, 
enduring, desired, warned, reward, errors, presumptuous, dominion, trans¬ 
gression, meditation, acceptable, redeemer. 

V. “The fear of the Lord is clean” (free from corrupt ceremonies). 
Note the rh} r thm of Hebrew poetry. It has no rhyme, nor rhythm of syl¬ 
labic feet, like European poetry. The poetic form consists in the rhythm 
of thoughts, or a parallelism of stanzas , which produces symmetry, and 
answers in the place of the rhythmical beat which we enjoy in our poetry. 
Tautology (repetition of the same word, or of the same idea in different 
words) and synonyms are frequently used to produce this species of internal 
rhythm. The English translation of the Bible accordingly presents the 
poetic aroma of the Hebrew poetry better than the versification of Addison 
( see II.) or Watts. Note the parallelism which constitutes the rhythm : (1.) 
Synonyms: heavens; firmament. (2.) Tautology: glory of God; his handy- 
work ; day unto day; night unto night. (3.) Correspondence of expres¬ 
sion and thing expressed : uttereth—sheweth, speech—knowledge. Apply 
this rhythmical analysis to the remaining verses of this psalm. ( See CII., 
note, and CXLIV., note. Later English poetry, and also German poetry, 
has caught the spirit of this rhythm of sense from the Bible, and betrays 



FIFTH READER. 


317 


its influence in the use of parallelisms, of tautology, synonyms, and cor¬ 
respondence, especially in compositions of a stately and elevated char¬ 
acter. See Ode on the Duke of Wellington , CXLIII.; also CXXIII., 
CXXIX., CXVIII., CXVI., and even in the prose piece of Tyndall, C., 
Bunyan’s writings, LXX., LXI., LXII.) 


CIV.—THE HAPPY VALLEY. 

1. The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity 
had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes 
was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, sur¬ 
rounded on every side by mountains, of which the sum¬ 
mits overhang the middle part. The only passage by 
which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under 
a rock, of which it has been long disputed whether it 
was the work of Nature or of human industry. 

2. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick 
wood, and the mouth, which opened into the valley, w~as 
closed with gates of iron forged by the artificers of 
ancient days, so massy that no man could, without the 
help of engines, open or shut them. 

3. From the mountains, on every side, rivulets de¬ 
scended, that filled all the valley with verdure and fer¬ 
tility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish 
of every species, and frequented by every fowl which 
Nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This lake 
discharged its superfluities by a stream, which entered a 
dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell, 
with dreadful noise, from precipice to precipice, till it 
was heard no more. 

4. The sides of the mountains were covered with 
trees. The banks of the brooks were diversified with 



318 


FIFTH READER. 


flowers. Every blast shook spices from the rocks, and 
every month dropped fruits upon the ground. All ani¬ 
mals that bite the grass or browse the shrub, whether 
wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured 
from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined 
them. 

5. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the 
pastures; on another, all the beasts of chase frisking in 
the lawns ; the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, 
the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn 
elephant reposing in the shade. ’All the diversities of 
the world were brought together; the blessings of Nature 
were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded. 

6. The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabi¬ 
tants with the necessaries of life; and all delights and 
superfluities were added at the annual visit which the 
Emperor paid his children, when the iron gate was opened 
to the sound of music, and during eight days every one 
that resided in the valley was required to propose what¬ 
ever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill 
up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the tediousness 
of the time. 

7. Every desire was immediately granted. All the 
artificers of pleasure were called to gladden the festivity; 
the musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the 
dancers showed their activity before the princes, in hope 
that they should pass their lives in this blissful captivity, 
to which those only were admitted whose performance 
was thought capable of adding novelty to luxury. 

8. Such was the appearance of security and delight 
which this retirement afforded, that they to whom it was 
new always desired that it might be perpetual; and as 


FIFTH READER. 


319 


those on whom the iron gate had once closed were never 
suffered to return, the effect of long experience could not 
be known. Thus every year produced new schemes of 
delight and new competitors for imprisonment. 

Samuel Johnson. 


For Preparation.— I. From “Rasselas,” Chapter I. Johnson’s first 
literary work was a translation of Father Lobo’s “ Voyage to Abyssinia.” 
About twenty-five years later appeared “ Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,” his 
most celebrated work. The object of the book is to show that, if all of the 
physical wants of man were supplied as fast as they arose, still he would be 
unhappy, because of a spiritual want. He investigates different occupations 
of man, and discusses them with a profound insight. 

II. -Gon-gealed', ar-tif'-i-$er§, forged, 6n'-e-mie§, de-scSnd'-ed, 
spe'-cies (-shez), fre-quent'-ed, slr'-fsuit (-kit), sub'-tile, sbl'-emn (-em), 
61'-e-pliant, an'-nu-al, te'-di-oiis-ness, fruit'-ful (frut'-), mu-§i'-cian 

(-zlsh'an). 

III. All words are derived from roots (radicals, or simple uncompounded 
bases) by modifications through prefixes, suffixes, or internal changes. The 
prefixes and suffixes, and internal changes, modify or change the original 
meaning of the root, so as to make it an action-word, a describing-word, name- 
word, relation-word, manner-word, etc. For example: the prefix wo changes 
man to woman (fe-min-ine—wife-man) ; the suffix ly changes man to manly 
(manlike—a describing-word); and the internal change of a to e changes man 
to men (singular to plural). To show what possibilities of varied use a root 
has, let us present the following etymological fancies, which have at least a 
basis of fact : Take the root gr (c r or Jcr) —the throat-sounds g or k appear to 
express cause or origin most frequently ; the liquids l , r, m, and n, express 
more readily different kinds of moving effect ; the dentals d, t, oftenest a 
dead result or external limitation, and hence occur in demonstratives or 
pointing-out-words, as this, that, etc. What could be more appropriate than 
to express by gr , hr, a cause or origin which had a moving effect (i. e., 
growth of living beings, animal or vegetable)— grow, growth, growing, grown, 
grass, green (gro-en —hence green, the color of growing plants, and grass, 
which once meant all plants), <?rand, and great (that which has grown to a 
result), grain, granary, germ ; then, from the other form of its root, cr (Jcr), 
increase, crescent, kernel, corn (the kernel of the body is the heart = cor, 
cordis in Latin; kardia in Greek— k becomes h, and our word heart has 
the same derivation as the Latin and Greek words), heart, cordial, acorn (oak- 
corn), (the grain or corn has a hard, horny covering, and cornu in Latin, 




320 


FIFTH HEADER. 


and keras t Greek, mean “ horn ”), horn , comute (horn is hard = Greek kar- 
tos , which may be from the same root, through kraios, meaning strong , as 
growth is also the source of strength), ere ate, and its derivatives. In study¬ 
ing language, one is apt to be misled by similarity of sound and meaning. 
The only scientific certainty that can be reached in this study is by tracing! 
derivation historically, step by step, back through the earlier stages of the 
languages, to the parent language. Hence we call this study of the root gr 
an “ etymological fancy.” It is not presented historically. 

IV. Policy, antiquity, destined, spacious, cavern, dispute, massy, rivu¬ 
lets, verdure, superfluities, precipice, browse, secured, pastures, frolicking, 
diversities, resided, seclusion, vacancies, artificers, festivity, harmony, per¬ 
petual, competitors. 

V. Notice the lack of simplicity in the style—the use of long, unusual 
words to describe very ordinary things. It is an elevation of language 
rather than of thought. It was considered a mark of elegance and refine¬ 
ment, in Johnson’s time, to reject the pithy and strong colloquial phrases 
as vulgarisms, and to use a stilted vocabulary of semi-Latin words. The 
sentences, too, must not be short and with single subject and predicate, but 
long and symmetrical, so as to sound rhythmical. Instead of “made by the 
smiths of past ages, heavy and difficult to move,” he says “ forged by the 
artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could, without the help of 
engines, open or shut them ” (2). Note, too, the alliteration in this semi- 
rhythmical prose: in the 3d paragraph count the f’s and v’s that occur 
(a dozen or more in the first sentence). See how (last sentence of para¬ 
graph 3) he tells us the simple fact of a river forming the outlet of the 
lake, passing north through a narrow gorge in the mountains, and descend¬ 
ing in cataracts till it reached the plain. Select other examples similar to 
these, and give the thoughts and ideas in your own language. (For learn¬ 
ing to write a good style yourself, and for getting the power to understand 
readily the style of another, there is no other method so good as this one of 
paraphrasing.) 


CV.—THE DREAM OF CLARENCE. 

Brdkenbury —Why looks your grace so heavily to-day ? 

Clarence —Oh, I have passed a miserable night— 

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, 

That, as I am a Christian faithful man, 

I would not spend another such a night, 



FIFTH READER. 


321 


Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days- 
So full of dismal terror was the time! 

Bralc. —What was your dream, my lord ? I pray you, 
tell me. 

Cla/r. —Methouglit that I had broken from the Tower, 
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy, 

And in my company my brother Gloster; 

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk 
Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward Eng¬ 
land, 

And cited up a thousand heavy times, 

During the wars of York and Lancaster, 

That had befall’n us. As we passed along 
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, 

Methought that Gloster stiimbled; and, in falling, 
Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard, 

Into the tumbling billows of the main. 

O Heaven! methought what pain it was to drown! 
What dreadful noise of water in my ears! 

What sights of ugly death within my eyes! 

I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; 

A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon; 

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 

All scattered in the bottom of the sea. 

Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes 
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept, 

As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, 

That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, 

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. 

Brdk .—Had you such leisure in the time of death, 
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep ? 


FIFTH READER. 


Clar .—Methought I had; and often did I strive 
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood 
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth 
To find the empty, vast, and wandering air; 

But smothered it within my panting bulk, 

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. 

Brak. —Awaked you not with this sore agony ? 

Clar. —No, no ! my dream was lengthened after life; 
Oh, then began the tempest to my soul! 

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood 
With that grim ferryman which poets write of, 

Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 

The first that there did greet my stranger-soul 
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick, 

Who cried aloud, “ What scourge for perjury 
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence f ” 

And so he vanished. Then came wandering by 
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood ; and he shrieked out aloud : 

“ Clarence is come—false , fleeting , perjured Clarence — 
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ! 

Seize on him , Furies ! Take him to your torments / ” 
With that, methought a legion of foul fiends 
Environed me, and howled in mine ears 
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, 

I trembling waked, and, for a season after, 

Could not believe but that I was in hell— 

Such terrible impression made my dream. 

Brak. —No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you! 

I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. 

Clar. —Ah! Brakenbury, I have done these things, 
That now give evidence against my soul, 


FIFTH READER. 


323 


For Edward’s sake; and see liow Le requites me! 

O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease Thee, 

But Thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds, 

Yet execute thy wrath on me alone: 

Oh, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children! 

I prithee, Brakenbury, stay by me; 

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. 

Brahe .—I will, my lord; God give your grace good 
rest!— 

[ Clarence reposing himself on a chair.\ 
Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, 

Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. 
Princes have but their titles for their glories, 

And outward honor for an inward toil; 

And, for unfelt imaginations, 

They often feel a world of restless cares: 

So that, between their titles and low name, 

There’s nothing differs but the outward fame. 

Shakespeare. 


For Preparation. —I. Richard III.: date of his reign, and sketch of its 
chief events. Story of Clarence, as given by Shakespeare in the drama 
from which this extract is taken. (King Richard III., Act. I., Scene 4.) 
Explain “the wars of York and Lancaster” (called the “Wars of the 
Roses.”) Who is referred to by “Gloster” ?—by “Warwick”? (the king¬ 
maker)—in “ for Edward’s sake ” ? (Edward IV., of York, his brother.) 
What “perjury” is referred to? (Clarence, though son-in-law of Warwick, 
had deserted him, and thus broken his oath, when Warwick took the field 
against Edward IV.) Who was stabbed by Clarence at Tewksbury ? (Young 
Edward of Lancaster, the prince.) What is the “ Tower ” ? Where is 
Burgundy, and why going thither ? (Richard III., here called Gloster, and 
George, called Clarence, had been placed by their mother under the protec¬ 
tion of the Duke of Burgundy when youths, their father, the Duke of York, 
having been beheaded. It is quite natural that in his dream he should 
direct his flight thither.) 

II. Lei'-§ure (le'zhur), yield, s^oftrge (skuij), n6tch'-e§, howled. 



324 


FIFTH READER. 


III.—’Twere looked, “ were crept,” father-in-law, prithee. 

IY. Define hatches, cited, “melancholy flood,” “grim ferryman,” per¬ 
jury, furies, requites, inestimable, unvalued (invaluable). 

Y. Why “ dark monarchy ” ? Does any part of the dream (“ struck me 
overboard”) suggest Richard’s (Gloster’s) subsequent treatment of his 
brother George (Clarence)? Who was the elder, Clarence, or Gloster? 
(Clarence.) Compare this dream with Byron’s “ Dream of Darkness,” in 
point of style. 


CVL—THE TIME FOR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL 
CULTURE. 

1. The flight of our human hours, not really more 
rapid at any one moment than another, yet oftentimes to 
our feelings seems more rapid; and the flight startles 
us, like guilty things, with a more affecting sense of rapid¬ 
ity, when a distant church-clock strikes in the night-time; 
or when, upon some solemn summer evening, the sun’s 
disk, after settling for a minute with farewell horizontal 
rays, suddenly drops out of sight. 

2. The record of our loss, in such a case, seems to us 
the first intimation of its possibility; as if we could not 
be made sensible that the hours were perishable, until it 
is announced to us that already they have perished. We 
feel a perplexity of distress when that which seems to us 
the cruelest of injuries—a robbery committed upon our 
dearest possession by the conspiracy of the world outside 
—seems also as in part a robbery sanctioned by our own 
collusion. 

3. The world, and the customs of the world, never 
cease to levy taxes upon our time. That is true, and so 
far the blame is not ours; but the particular degree in 
which we suffer by this robbery, depends much upon the 



FIFTH READER. 


325 


weakness with which we ourselves become parties to the 
wrong, or the energy with which we resist it. Resisting 
or not, however, we are doomed to suffer a hitter pang 
as often as the irrecoverable flight of our time is brought 
home with keenness to our hearts. 

4. The spectacle of a lady floating over the sea in a 
boat, and waking suddenly from sleep to find her mag¬ 
nificent rope of pearl necklace by some accident detached 
at one end from its fastenings, the loose string hanging 
down in the water, and pearl after pearl slipping off for¬ 
ever into the abyss, brings before us the sadness of the 
case. 

5. That particular pearl which at the very moment 
is rolling off into the unsearchable deeps, carries its own 
separate reproach to the lady’s heart. But it is more 
deeply reproachful as the representative of so many 
others, uncounted pearls, that have already been swal¬ 
lowed up irrecoverably while she was yet sleeping, and 
of many beside that must follow before any remedy can 
be applied to what we may call this jewelly hemorrhage. 

6. A constant hemorrhage of the same kind is wast¬ 
ing our jewelly hours. A day has perished from our 
brief calendar of days, and that we could endure; but 
this day is no more than the reiteration of many other 
days—days counted by thousands, that have perished to 
the same extent and by the same unhappy means—viz., 
the evil usages of the world made effectual and ratified 
by our own concurrence. 

7. Bitter is the upbraiding which we seem to hear 
from a secret monitor.—My friend, you make very free 
with your days! Pray, how many do you expect to have ? 
What is your rental as regards the total harvest of days 


326 


FIFTH READER. 


which this life is likely to yield ? Let us consider. Three¬ 
score years and ten produce a total sum of twenty-five 
thousand five hundred and fifty days: to say nothing of 
some seventeen or eighteen more that will be payable to 
you as a bonus on account of leap-years. 

8. Now, out of this total, one-third must be deducted 
at a blow for a single item—viz., sleep. Next, on account 
of illness, of recreation, and the serious occupations 
spread over the surface of life, it will be little enough to 
deduct another third. Recollect, also, that twenty years 
will have gone from the earlier end of your life—viz., 
above seven thousand days—before you can have attained 
any skill of system, or any definite purpose in the dis¬ 
tribution of your time. 

9. Lastly, for tendance on the animal necessities—viz., 
eating, drinking, washing, bathing, and exercise—deduct 
the smallest allowance consistent with propriety, and; 
upon summing up all these appropriations, you will not 
find so much as four thousand days left disposable for 
direct intellectual culture. Four thousand, or forty hun¬ 
dred, will be a hundred forties; that is, according to the 
lax Hebrew method of indicating six weeks by the phrase 
of “ forty days,” you will have a hundred bills or drafts 
on Father Time, value six weeks each, as the whole 
period available for intellectual labor. 

10. A solid block of about eleven and a half con¬ 
tinuous years is all that a long life will furnish for the 
development of what is most august in man’s nature. 
After that, the night comes, when no man can work; 
brain and arm will be alike unserviceable; or, if the life 
should be unusually extended, the vital powers will be 
drooping as regards all motions in advance. 

Thomas Dc Quincey. 


FIFTH READER. 


327 


For Preparation.—I. From what are the words quoted, “The night 
cometh, when no man can work ” ? (John ix. 4.) “ Startles us like guilty 

things”? (Hamlet, Act I.) 

II. Flight (flit), 6ft'-en-tlme§ (6f'n-), start'-le§ (-lz), sol'-emn (-em), 
h6r-i-z6n'-tal, ray§, sight (sit), pds-si-bil'-i-ty, al-rbad'-y, per-pl8x'- 
i-ty, -eon-spir'-a-gy, wrbng (rong), re-§ist, pearl (perl), ae'-gi-dent, fast'- 
en-ing§ (fas'n-), roll'-ing, sbp'-a-rate, -eal'-en-dar, yield, serfage, v&l'-ue 
(val'yu), aU-gUSt'. 

III. Explain esl in “crudest” ;— ies in “ injuries”; select the personifi¬ 
cations and metaphors in the piece, and arrange them separately. 

IV. Disk, record, intimation, sensible, perished, sanctioned, collusion 
(2), irrecoverable, “jewelly hemorrhage,” reiteration, usages, ratified, con¬ 
currence, upbraiding, monitor, rental, total, “threescore and ten years,” 
“ leap-years,” bonus, deducted, item, recreation, “ serious occupation,” pro¬ 
priety, appropriations, “ Father Time,” vital, “ notions in advance.” 

V. Write out in your own words the thought of a paragraph of this 
piece; then study the elfect of the expressions used by De Quincey, and see 
whether they add to the thought, or merely to its embellishment. 


evil.—THE CATARACT OF LODORE 

1. “ How does the water 

Come down at Lodore 1 ” 

My little boy asked me 
Thus, once on a time ; 

And, moreover, he tasked me 
To tell him in rhyme. 

Anon at the word, 

There first came one daughter, 
And then came another, 

To second and third 

The request of their brother, 
And to hear how the water 
Comes down at Lodore, 

With its rush and its roar, 


328 


FIFTH HEADER. 


As many a time 
They had seen it before. 

So I told them in rhyme— 
For of rhymes I had store ; 
And ’twas my vocation 
For their recreation 
That so I should sing; 
Because I was Laureate 
To them and the king. 


2. From its sources, which well * 

In the tarn on the fell; 

From its fountains 
In the mountains, 

Its rills and its gills; 

Through moss and through brake, 
It runs and it creeps 
For awhile, till it sleeps 
In its own little lake. 

And thence, at departing 
Awakening and starting, 

It runs through the reeds, 

And away it proceeds, 

Through meadow and glade, 

In sun and in shade, 

And through the wood-shelter, 
Among crags in its flurry, 
Helter-skelter, 

Hurry-skurry. 

Here it comes sparkling, 

And there it lies darkling; 

How smoking and frothing 
Its tumult and wrath in, 


FIFTH HEADER. 


329 


Till, in this rapid race 
On which it is bent, 

It reaches the place 
Of its steep descent. 

3. The cataract strong 
Then plunges along, 

Striking and raging, 

As if a war waging 

Its caverns and rocks among; 

Rising and leaping, 

Sinking and creeping, 

Swelling and sweeping, 

Showering and springing, 

Flying and flinging, 

Writhing and ringing, 

Eddying and whisking, 

Spouting and frisking, 

Turning and twisting, 

Around and around 
With endless rebound. 

Smiting and fighting, 

A sight to delight in; 

Confounding, astounding, 

Dizzying, and deafening the ear with its sounds. 

4. Collecting, projecting, 

Receding and speeding, 

And shocking and rocking, 

And darting and parting, 

And threading and spreading, 

And whizzing and hissing, 

And dripping and skipping, 

And hitting and splitting, 


330 


FIFTH READER. 

And shining and twining, 

And rattling and battling, 

And shaking and quaking, 

And pouring and roaring, 

And waving and raving, 

And tossing and crossing, 

And flowing and going, 

And running and stunning, 

And foaming and roaming, 

And dinning and spinning, 

And dropping and hopping, 

And working and jerking, 

And guggling and struggling, 

And heaving and cleaving, 

And moaning and groaning, 

5. And glittering and frittering, 

And gathering and feathering, 

And whitening and brightening, 

And quivering and shivering, 

And hurrying and skurrying, 

And thundering and floundering; 

6. Dividing and gliding and sliding, 

And falling and brawling and sprawling, 

And driving and riving and striving, 

And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling’; 
And sounding and hounding and rounding, 
And bubbling and troubling and doubling, 
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling, 
And chattering and battering and shattering; 

7. Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, 
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, 


FIFTH READER. 


331 


Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, 

Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling, 

And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beam¬ 
ing, 

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gush¬ 
ing, . 

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slap- 

ping, 

And curling and whirling and purling and twirling, 

And thumping and plumping and bumping and jump¬ 
ing,. 

And dashing and flashing and splashing and clash¬ 
ing; 

And so never ending, but always descending, 

Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending, 

All at once, and all o’er, with a mighty uproar: 
And this way the water comes down at Lodore. 

Robert Southey. 


For Preparation.—I. “ Lodore ’’—can you find this cataract ? “ Poet- 

laureate ”—what does this mean ? Have you read the author’s poem, “ The 
March to Moscow ” ? 

II. Pro-geedg', mSad'-ow, flur'-ry, skur'-ry-ing, groan'-ing feron'-), 
de-s$8nt'. 

III. Note the rhymes: (a) at end of line; (b) on second syllable from 
the end; (c) of one syllable with another within the same line. Note the 
change of rhyme and rhythm as we descend from the source of the stream to 
the foot of the cataract. 

IY. Tarn, fell, cataract, helter-skelter, hurry-skurry. 

V. What object could a poet have in writing such a piece as this? 
(Humorous?—amusement of children. To display his command of descrip¬ 
tive words ? To portray in a genuine manner the impression which the 
cataract makes upon the sympathetic beholder ?) Are there any metaphors 
or personifications in this poem ? 

YI. Use this piece as an exercise in articulation. 



332 


FIFTH READER. 


CVI1I.—MY ORATORICAL EXPERIENCE. 

1. While I was occupied in criticising my fellow-guests, 
the mayor had got up to propose another toast; and, lis¬ 
tening' rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, I 
became sensible of a drift in his worship’s remarks that 
made me glance apprehensively toward Sergeant Wilkins. 
“ Yes,” grumbled that gruff personage, “ it is your turn 
next; ” and seeing in my face, I suppose, the consterna¬ 
tion of a wholly unpractised orator, he added, “It is 
nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the pur¬ 
pose. The less you say, the better they will like it.” 

2. That being the case, I suggested that perhaps 
they would like it best if I said nothing at all. But the 
sergeant shook his head. Now, on first receiving the 
mayor’s invitation to dinner, it had occurred to me that 
I might possibly be brought into my present predicament, 
but I had dismissed the idea from my mind as too dis¬ 
agreeable to be entertained; and, moreover, as so alien 
from my disposition and character, that Fate surely could 
not keep such a misfortune in store for me. 

3. If nothing prevented, an earthquake, or the crack 
of doom, would certainly interfere before I need rise to 
speak. Yet here was the mayor getting on inexorably ; 
and, indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and 
on forever, and of his wordy wanderings find no end. If 
the gentle reader, my kindest friend and closest con¬ 
fidant, deigns to desire it, I can impart to him my own 
experience as a public speaker quite as indifferently as if 
it concerned another person. Indeed, it does concern an¬ 
other, or a mere spectral phenomenon; for it was not I, 
in my proper and natural self, that sat there at table, or 
subsequently rose to speak. 


FIFTH READER. 


333 


4. At the moment, then, if the choice had been offered 
to me whether the mayor should let off a speech at my 
head, or a pistol, I should unhesitatingly have taken the 
latter alternative. I had really nothing to say, not an 
idea in my head, nor—which was a good deal worse—any 
flowing words or embroidered sentences in which to dress 
out that empty nothing, and give it a cunning aspect of 
intelligence, such as might last the poor vacuity the little 
time it had to live. 

5. But time pressed ; the mayor brought his remarks, 
affectionately eulogistic of the United States, and compli¬ 
mentary to their distinguished representative at that table, 
to a close, amid a vast deal of cheering; and the band 
struck up “Hail Columbia,” I believe—though it might 
have been “ Old Hundred,” or “ God Save the Queen ” 
over again, for anything that I should have known or 
cared. 

6. When the music ceased, there was an intensely dis¬ 
agreeable instant, during which I seemed to rend away 
and fling off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void 
of ideas, but with preternatural composure, to make a 
speech. The guests rattled on the table, and cried, 
“ Hear! ” most vociferously; as if now, at length, in this 
foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long- 
expected moment when one golden word was to be 
spoken; and in that imminent crisis I caught a glimpse 
of a little bit of an effusion of international sentiment 
which it might, and must, and should do to utter. 

Y. Well, it was “nothing,” as the sergeant had said. 
What surprised me most was the sound of my own voice, 
which I had never before heard at a declamatory pitch, 
and which impressed me as belonging to some other per¬ 
son, who—and not myself—w r ould be responsible for the 


334 


FIFTH HEADER. 


speech : a prodigious consolation and encouragement un¬ 
der the circumstances! 

8. I went on without the slightest embarrassment, 
and sat down amid great applause, wholly undeserved 
by anything that I had spoken, but well won from Eng¬ 
lishmen, methought, by the new development of pluck 
that alone had enabled me to speak at all. “It was 
handsomely done! ” quoth Sergeant Wilkins; and I felt 
like a recruit who bad been for the first time under fire. 

9. I would gladly have ended my oratorical career 
then and there forever; but was often placed in a similar 
or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best 
might; for this was one of the necessities of an office 
which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and be¬ 
neath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency 
on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice 
and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. 

Nathaniel Haiothorne. 


For Preparation.— I. In what country is the mayor called “ his wor¬ 
ship ” (worth-ship) ? Of what country was this mayor probably, judging by 
his allusions ? (5, 8.) 

II. List'-en-ing (Hs'n-), ser'-geant (sar'jent), deign§ (danz), al-ter'-na- 
tive, mis-f6rt'-une, re-eruit' (-krut'). 

III. Fellow-guests, methought, long-expected. Correct the following 
expressions: “ The mayor have got up ; ” “ His worships remarks.” Differ¬ 
ence in meaning between good and best and better. Why “Fate” with a 
capital ? 

IV. Consternation, predicament, alien, phenomenon, subsequently, vacu¬ 
ity, eulogistic, preternatural, vociferously, garrulous, crisis, effusion, volun¬ 
tarily, delinquency, “ crack of doom,” shirk. 

V. “ Getting on inexorably.” Do you think the description (3, 4, and 
5) of the feelings of the author on this occasion would apply to other 
cases that you know of? “ Had come the long-expected moment ” (6)—is 
this ironical ? What is irony ? Write out at length in your own language 
the 6th paragraph. 



FIFTH READER. 


335 


CIX.—PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF. 

[Prince Henry and Poins, in a lack room in the Boar's Head Tav¬ 
ern, at Eastcheap. Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and 

Peto.] 

Poins —Welcome, Jack ! Where hast thou been ? 

Falstaff —A plague of all cowards, I say, and a ven¬ 
geance, too! marry, and amen!—Give me a cup of sack, 
boy!—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew netherstocks, and 
mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cow¬ 
ards !—Give me a cup of sack, rogue!—Is there no virtue 
extant? {lie drinks, and then continues .] You rogue, 
here’s lime in this sack! There’s nothing but roguery 
to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse 
than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward ! 
Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt. If manhood, 
good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, 
then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good 
men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and 
grows old. A bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; 
I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cow¬ 
ards, I say still! 

Prince Henry —How now, wool-sack ? What mutter 
you? 

Fal. —A king’s son ! How, if I do not beat thee out 
of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy 
subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll never 
wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales! 

P. Henry —Why, you base-born dog ! What’s the 
matter ? 

Fal. —Are you not a coward ? Answer me to that— 
and Poins there ? 


336 


FIFTH READER. 


Poins —Ye fat braggart, an ye call me coward, I’ll 
stab thee! 

Fal. —I call thee coward ? I’ll see thee hanged ere I 
call thee coward ; but I would give a thousand pounds 
I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight 
enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. 
Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon 
such backing! Give me them that will face me.—Give 
me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day. 

P. Henry —O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since 
thou drankst last. 

Fal. —All’s one for that! A plague of all cowards, 
still say I! [He drinks.'] 

P. Henry —What’s the matter ? 

Fal. —What’s the matter ? There be four of us here 
have ta’en a thousand pounds this morning. 

P. Henry —Where is it, Jack ?—where is it ? 

Fal. —Where is it ? Taken from us it is: a hundred 
upon poor four of us. 

P. Henry —What! a hundred, man ? 

Fal. —I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with 
a dozen of them for two hours together. I have ’scaped 
by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet: 
four through the hose; my buckler cut through and 
through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw. Look here ! 
[shows his sword.] I never dealt better since I was a 
man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let 
them speak [pointing to Gadshill , Bardolph , and Peto]. 
If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, 
and the sons of darkness. 


FIFTH READER. 


337 


P. Henry —Speak, sirs—how was it ? 

Gadshill —¥e four set upon some dozen— 

Pal. —Sixteen, at least, my lord. 

Gads. —And bound them. 

Peto —No, no; they were not bound. 

Pal. —You rogue, they were bound, every man of 
them! 

Gads. —As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh 
men set upon us— 

Pal. —And unbound the rest; and then come in the 
other. 

P. Henry —What! fought ye with them all ? 

Fal. —All? I know not what ye call all; but if I 
fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! 
If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old 
Jack, then I am no two-legged creature. 

P. Henry —Pray Heaven you have not murdered 
some of them ? 

Fal. —Nay, that’s past praying for. I have pep¬ 
pered two of them: two, I am sure, I have paid—two 
rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal: if I tell 
thee a lie, spit in my face, and call me a horse. Thou 
knowest my old ward. [He draws his sword , and stands 
as if about to fight. ] Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. 
Four rogues in buckram let drive at me— 

P. Henry —What! four ? Thou saidst but two, even 
now. 

Fal. —Four, Hal; I told thee four. 

Poins —Ay, ay, he said four. 

15 


S38 


FIFTH READER. 


Fat. —These four came all afront, and mainly thrust 
at me. I made no more ado, but took all their seven 
points in my target, thus. 

P. Henry —Seven ? Why, there were but four, even 
now. 

Fat. —In buckram ? 

Poins —Ay, four, in buckram suits. 

Fal. —Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else! 

P. Henry —Prithee, let him alone; we shall have 
more anon. 

Fal. —Dost thou hear me, Hal ? 

P. Henry —Ay, and mark thee, too, Jack. 

Fal. —Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These 
nine men in buckram, that I told thee of— 

P. Henry —So, two more already ! 

Fal. —Their points, being broken, began to give me 
ground; but I followed me close—came in foot and hand ; 
and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid. 

P. Henry —Oh, monstrous!—eleven buckram men 
grown out of two ! 

Fal. —But three knaves, in Kendal green, came at 
my back, and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, 
that thou couldst not see thy hand. 

P. Henry —These lies are like the father of them— 
gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay¬ 
brained, knotty-pated fool! thou greasy tallow-keech— 

Fal. —What! Art thou mad?—art thou mad? Is 
not the truth the truth ? 


FIFTH READER. 


339 


P. Henry —Why, how couldst thou know these men 
in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not 
see thy hand ? Come, tell us your reason! What sayest 
thou to this? 

Poins —Come, your reason, Jack—your reason ! 

Pal, —What! upon compulsion ? No! Were I at the 
scaffold, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell 
you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! 
If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give 
no man a reason on compulsion. 

P. Henry —I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This 
sanguine coward, this horse-back breaker, this huge hill 
of flesh— 

Fal .—Away, you starveling! you eel-skin 1 you dried 
neat’s tongue! you stock-fish! Oh, for breath to utter 
what is like thee!—you tailor’s yard ! you sheath! you 
bow-case! you— 

P. Henry —Well, breathe awhile, and then to it 
again; and when thou hast tired thyself in base com¬ 
parisons, hear me speak but this. 

Poins —Mark, Jack. 

P. Henry —We two saw you four set on four; you 
bound them, and were masters of their wealth. Mark, 
now, how plain a tale shall put you down. Then did we 
two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from 
your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it to you, here 
in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried yourself away as 
nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, 
and still ran and roared, as ever I heard a calf. What a 
slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and 
then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what 


340 


FIFTH READER. 


starting-hole, canst thou now find out to hide thee from 
this open and apparent shame ? 

Poins —Come, let’s hear, Jack! "What trick hast thou 
now? 

Fal. —Why, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. 
Why, hear ye, my masters: was it for me to kill the heir- 
apparent ? Should I turn upon the true prince ? Why, 
thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules. But beware 
instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct 
is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall 
think the better of myself and thee during my life: I for 
a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, lads, I am 
glad you have the money.—Hostess, clap to the doors. 
Watch to-niglit, pray to-morrow.—Gallants, lads, boys, 
hearts of gold, all the titles of good-fellowship come to 
you ! What! shall we he merry ? Shall we have a play 
extempore ? 

P. Henry —Content; and the argument shall he, thy 
running away. 

Fal .—Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me. 

William Shakespeare. 


For Preparation.— I. Shakespeare’s “ Henry IV.,” Part I., Act II., 
Scene 4. Where is Eastcheap ? (In London.) In which of the plays 
does Falstaff appear ? (“ Merry Wives of Windsor,” “ Henry IV.” and 

“ Henry V.”) “ Cup of sack ” (sack, Latin siccus , a dry wine, like sherry). 

“ Prince Henry ” (afterward Henry V.—eldest son of King Henry IV.). Why 
called “ Prince of Wales ” ? Why called heir-apparent ? 

II. Vil'-lan-ous (old spelling — villainous is preferred), plague 
(plag), vSnge'-an^e. 

III. Explain the effect of t in wilt; o instead of e in forgot; ’ in ’scaped. 

IV. Explain “ tallow-keech ” (round lump of tallow), tavern, netlier- 
stocks, extant, “ shotten herring,” “dagger of lath,” braggart, gibbeted, 
“ half-sword with a dozen,” doublet, hose, buckle, sharing, “ buckram suits,” 



FIFTH READER. 


341 


target, palpable, strappado, compulsion, sanguine, instinct, valiant, gallants, 
extempore, argument. 

V. Which of the “ three good men unhanged ” is the fat one that grows 
old? “Would I were a weaver” (Henry calls him “wool-sack” because 
of this wish, and because of his resemblance to a bag stuffed with wool). 
Henry retorts “base-born” to what taunt? Explain the play on w'ords 
(pun) in “backing your friends.” Note the irony of Prince Henry and 
Poins in their remarks. “ My old ward ” (i. e., his old attitude in defense). 
Why docs Poins take the side of Falstaff in saying, “ Ay, ay, he said four ” 
—jest, or earnest ? Difference between hear thee and mark thee ? Why 
“ horse-back breaker ” ? “ Away, you starveling,” etc. (Falstaff, resenting 

Henry’s taunts, twits him with his leanness.) 


CX.—BUGLE-SONG. 

The splendor falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story ; 

The long light shakes across the lakes, 

And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 

Blow, bugle—blow! set the wild echoes flying. 
Blow’, bugle! Answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark ! O hear, how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 

O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 

Blow ! let us hear the purple glens replying. 

Blow, bugle! Answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky ! 

They faint on hill, or field, or river ; 

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 

And grow forever and forever. 

Blow, bugle—blow! set the wild echoes flying! 

And answer, echoes ! answer, dying, dying, dying. 

Tennyson. 



342 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation. —I. From tlie Third Fart of Tennyson’s “ Princess.” 
What is meant by Elfland ? 

II. Spl&n'-dor, -eas'-tle (kas'i), &«h'-oe§ (ek'oz), dy'-ing, field, bu'-gle 
(-gi), sum'-mits. 

III. Measure off a stanza of this poem into feet, and mark the ac¬ 
cent. 

IV. Elfland, glens, cataract, scar. 

Y. How do the echoes of one thought to another differ from the echoes 
of the bugle (3), as described in the metaphor of the third stanza ? “ Our 

echoes ” (i. e., our thoughts go from mind to mind, and thought grows more 
clear and comprehensive by transmission and re-thinking). What is meant 
by “ summits old in story ” ?—by “ long light shakes ” ? (The level sun 
shines on the water between us and it, making a long track of light trembling 
with the movement of the waves on the lake.) Is there anything in this 
meter, and the sounds of the words, that reminds you of the sound of the 
bugle itself ? If so, point it out. 


CXI—THE MOCK-TURTLE’S STORY. 

1. “ When we were little,” the Mock-Turtle went on 
at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and 
then, “ we went to school in the sea. The master was 
an old turtle ; we used to call him Tortoise—” 

“ Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one \ ” 
Alice asked. 

“We called him Tortoise, because he taught us,” 
said the Mock-Turtle, angrily. “ Really, you are very 
dull! ” 

2. “ Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you 
mayn’t believe it—” 

“ I never said I didn’t! ” interrupted Alice. 

“You did!” said the Mock-Turtle. “We had the 
best of educations; in fact, we went to school every 
day-” 



FIFTH READER. 


343 


“ I’ve been to a day-school, too,” said Alice. “ You 
needn’t be so proud as all that! ” 

3. “ With extras ? ” asked the Mock-Turtle, a little 
anxiously. 

“ Yes,” said Alice ; “ we learned French and mu¬ 
sic.” 

“ And washing ? ” said the Mock-Turtle. 

“ Certainly not! ” said Alice, indignantly. 

“ Ah ! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said 
the Mock-Turtle, in a tone of great relief. 

“ Now, at ours , they had, at the end of the bill, 
‘ French, music, and washing , extra ! ’” 

4. “ You couldn’t have needed it much,” said Alice, 
“ living at the bottom of the sea.” 

“ I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock-Turtle, 
with a sigh. “ I only took the regular course.” 

“ What was that ? ” inquired Alice. 

“ Heeling and writhing, of course, to begin with,” the 
Mock-Turtle replied ; “ then the different branches of 
arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification, and de¬ 
rision.” 

5. “ What else did you learn ? ” 

“ Well, there was mystery,” the Mock-Turtle replied, 
counting off the subjects on his flappers—“ mystery, an¬ 
cient and modern, with seaography; then drawling. 
The drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to 
come once a week ; he taught us drawling, stretching^ 
and fainting in coils.” 

0. “ What was that like ? ” said Alice. 

“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock-Tur¬ 
tle said; “ I’m too stiff, and the Gryphon never learned 
it.” 


344 


FIFTH READER. 


“ Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon, in a low, gruff 
voice. “ I went to the classical master, though he was 
an old crab, he was.” 

“I never went to him,” the Mock-Turtle said, with 
a sigh; “ he taught laughing and grief, they used to say.” 

“ So he did! so he did! ” said the Gryphon, sighing 
in his turn ; and both creatures hid their faces in their 
paws. 

7. “And how many hours a day did you do les¬ 
sons ? ” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. 

“ Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock-Turtle, 
“nine the next, and so on.” 

“ What a curious plan ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

“ That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the 
Gryphon remarked—“ because they lessen from day to 
day.” 

8. This was quite anew idea to Alice, and she thought 
it over a little before she made her next remark. 

“ Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday.” 

“ Of course it was ! ” said the Mock-Turtle. 

“ And how did you manage on the twelfth ? ” Alice 
went on, eagerly. 

9. “ That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon in¬ 
terrupted, in a very decided tone. “ Tell her something 
about the games now.” 

“ Oh! a song, please—if the Mock-Turtle would be so 
kind,” Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, 
in a rather offended tone: 

“ H’m! no accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘ Turtle- 
Soup ’—will you, old fellow \ ” 

The Mock-Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a 
voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this: 


FIFTH READER. 


346 


10. “ Beautiful soup, so rich and green, 

Waiting in a hot tureen ! 

Who for such dainties would not stoop ? 
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup ! 

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup ! 
Beau-oo-tiful soo-oop! 

Beau-oo-tiful soo-oop! 

Soo-oop of the e-e-evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful soup ! ” 

Lewis Carroll. 


For Preparation.—I. From “ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Chap¬ 
ters IX. and X. “ Mock-turtle soup ” is made from veal, instead of real 
turtle. The humor of this piece consists partly in introducing an animal 
shaped like a turtle, but having a calf’s head, hind legs, and tail, instead of 
a turtle’s head, flappers, and tail. 

II. T6r'-toise (-tls), be-lieve', re-lief', wrlth'-ing (nth'-), an'-cient 
(-shent), Gryph'-on. 

III. Would you say, Dare to write, or, Dare write ?—Bid him to come, 
or, Bid him come ?—Let him to go, or, Let him go ? Correct the following: 
“ Make him to write ; ” “I heard him to call; ” “ See him to write; ” 
“Feel the pulse to beat;” “I wish him go;” “It is best walk;” “We 
had better to walk.” 

IV. “ Classical master,” tureen, dainties. 

V. “ Tortoise (pronounced tor'tls) taught us ! ” (this pun is worthy of a 
mock-turtle). “Mystery” (for history). “Drawling, stretching, and fainting,” 
etc. (drawing, sketching, and painting in oils). “ Laughing and grief ” (Latin 
and Greek). “ Beautiful Soup ” (sung to the tune of “ Star of the Evening, 
Beautiful Star,” gives frequent opportunity for the “voice choked with sobs ” 
to relieve itself). 


CXII.—EVENING. 

1. Day bath put on his jacket, and around 
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. 

Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, 

That is like padding to earth’s meagre ribs, 

And hold communion with the things about me. 




346 


FIFTH READER. 


Ah, me! how lovely is the golden braid 
That binds the skirt of Night’s descending robe ! 
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, 
Do make a music like to rustling satin, 

As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. 

2. Ha ! what is this that rises to my touch* 

So like a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ? 

It is! it is that deeply-injured flower, 

Which boys do flout us with ; but yet I love thee, 
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout! 
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright 
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath 
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; 

But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, 
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, 

And growing portly in his sober garments. 

3. Is that a swan, that rides upon the water ? 

Oh, no! it is that other gentle bird, 

Which is the patron of our noble calling. 

I well remember, in my early years, 

When these young hands first closed upon a goose 
I have a scar upon my thimble-finger, 

Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. 

My father was a tailor, and his father, 

And my sire’s grandsire—all of them were tailors. 
They had an ancient goose; it was an heirloom 
From some remoter tailor of our race. 

It happened I did see it on a time 

When none was near, and I did deal with it, 

And it did burn me, oh, most fearfully! 

4. It is a joy to straighten out one’s limbs, 

And leap elastic from the level counter, 


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347 


Leaving tlie petty grievances of earth, 

The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, 

And all the needles that do wound the spirit, 

For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. 

Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, 

Lays hare her shady bosom. I can feel 
With all around me; I can hail the flowers 
That sprig earth’s green mantle; and yon quiet bird, 
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. 

The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets 
Where Nature stows away her loveliness. 

But this unnatural posture of the legs 
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go 
Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 


Fou Preparation.—I. What other pieces of this author have you read ? 
(LIV.) Were they humorous, or serious ? Note the character of wit that 
turns on two meanings of the same word (ambiguity), and that which turns 
on a non-agreement between intention and accomplishment (the antics of a 
drunkard, or a weak-headed man). This piece represents a tailor writing a 
poem on Evening, and drawing all of his poetic figures from the objects 
familiar to his vocation. Whereas poetry should use figures that ennoble 
the subject by relieving it of narrow limitations and vulgar associations, to 
connect it with the instruments of a trade or appliances of an industry is to 
rob it entirely of the ideal element which poetry should have. The effect of 
such an attempt is shown in this poem with the happiest strokes of humor. 

II. Mea'-gre (me'gur), -eom-mfin'-ion, -eush'-ion (ko'osh'un), hueg, es'- 
seng-eg, -ehr6n'-i~eleg (kron'i-kiz), tai'-lorg, an'-cient (-shent), straiglit'-en 
(strat'n), griev'-ang-eg. 

III. Explain th for s in hath ;—’s in earth’s, and s in ribs ;—“ about me,” 
instead of “ about I ” ;— their threads for they threads ;— deeply injured lor 
deep injured ;—us for we ;— thee for thou. 

IV. Quivering, “ downy nap,” injured, flout, surtout, gaudy, portly, pa¬ 
tron, ambition, race, clastic, petty, din, pensive. 

V. Explain the allusions to the objects familiar to a tailor in jacket, 
buttoned, velvet, padding, braid, skirt, robe, silken threads, satin, nap, etc. 



348 


FIFTH READER. 


In what sense is “cabbage” used by a tailor? Why a “deeply injured 
flower ” ? What is the witty point in calling it a flower, and “ giant rose 
wrapped in a green surtout ” ? What “ puny brethren ” are referred to ? 
Double meaning of “goose” ? Why “ a joy to straighten out his limbs ” ? 
Why does the continued sitting in one position make any other position seem 
unnatural ? What is there laughable in the idea that the tailor shall come 
to call a standing posture unnatural ? 


cxill.— BENEFITS OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 

1. All these have led to important results. Through 
the invention of the mariner’s compass, the globe has 
been circumnavigated and explored, and all who inhabit 
it, with but few exceptions, brought within the sphere of 
an all-pervading commerce, which is daily diffusing over 
its surface the light and blessings of civilization. 

2. Through that of the art of printing, the fruits of 
observation and reflection, of discoveries and inventions, 
with all the accumulated store of previously-acquired 
knowledge, are preserved and widely diffused. The ap¬ 
plication of gunpowder to the art of war has forever 
settled the long conflict for ascendency between civiliza¬ 
tion and barbarism, in favor of the former, and thereby 
guaranteed that, whatever knowledge is now accumu¬ 
lated, or may hereafter be added, shall never again be 
lost. 

3. The numerous discoveries and inventions, chemi¬ 
cal and mechanical, and the application of steam to ma¬ 
chinery, have increased manifold the productive pow¬ 
ers of labor and capital, and have thereby greatly increased 
the number who may devote themselves to study and 
improvement, and the amount of means necessary for 
commercial exchanges, especially between the more and 



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349 


the less advanced and civilized portions of the globe, 
to tlie great advantage of both, but particularly of the 
latter. 

4. The application of steam to the purposes of travel 
and transportation by land and water, has vastly in¬ 
creased the facility, cheapness, and rapidity of both, 
diffusing, with them, information and intelligence almost 
as quickly and as freely as if borne by the winds; while 
the electrical wires outstrip them in velocity, rivaling in 
rapidity even thought itself. 

5. The joint effect of all has been a great increase 
and diffusion of knowledge; and with this, an impulse 
to progress and civilization heretofore unexampled in the 
history of the world, accompanied by a mental energy 
and activity unprecedented. 

6. To all these causes, public opinion and its organ, 
the press, owe their origin and great influence. Already 
they have attained a force in the more civilized portions 
of the globe sufficient to be felt by all governments, even 
the most absolute and despotic. But, as great as they 
now are, they have as yet attained nothing like their 
maximum force. 

I. It is probable that not one of the causes which 
have contributed to their formation and influence has 
yet produced its full effect; while several of the most 
powerful have just begun to operate; and many others, 
probably of equal or even greater force, yet remain to 
be brought to light. 

8. When the causes now in operation have produced 
their full effect, and inventions and discoveries shall have 
been exhausted—if that may ever be—they will give a 


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FIFTH READER. 


force to public opinion, and cause changes, political and 
social, difficult to be anticipated. What will be their final 
bearing, time only can decide with any certainty. 

9. That they will, however, greatly improve the con¬ 
dition of man ultimately, it would be impious to doubt; 
it would be to suppose that the all-wise and beneficent 
Being, the Creator of all, had so constituted man, as that 
the employment of the high intellectual faculties with 
which he has been pleased to endow him, in order that 
he might develop the laws that control the great agents 
of the material world, and make them subservient to his 
use, would prove to him the cause of permanent evil, and 
not of permanent good. 

10. If, then, such supposition be inadmissible, they 
must, in their orderly and full development, end in his 
permanent good. But this cannot be, unless the ulti¬ 
mate effect of their action, politically, shall be, to give 
ascendency to that form of government best calculated 
to fulfill the ends for which government is ordained. 

11. For so completely does the well-being of our 
race depend on good government, that it is hardly possi¬ 
ble any change, the ultimate effect of which should be 
otherwise, could prove to be a permanent good. 

John C. Calhoun. 


For Preparation. —I. In what centuries were the following inventions 
or discoveries made ?—The mariner’s compass (12th century); gunpowder 
(13th century); printing (15th century); steam-engine (18th century); the 
telegraph (19th century). 

II. Sphere, a-e-qulred', me~ehan'-i«-al, ma-ghin'-er-y (-sheen'), in- 
ad-mis'-si-ble. 

III. Write a letter to a friend, placing correctly the date, address , sub¬ 
scription , and superscription. Thus: 



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351 


New York, August 24, 1877. 

My dear James : 

Since I received your last, etc. 

Sincerely your friend, 

William. 

The superscription should be : 

Mr. James Blair, 

Care of Rev. John Blair, 

1 7 North Third Street, 

St. Louis, Mo. 


IV. Despotic, ultimate, faculties, permanent, ordained. 

V. Make a list of the inventions named in the piece, and opposite each 
itemize (write in the form of items) the benefits that have resulted from it 
(e. g., printing—preservation and diffusion of: (a) Fruits of observation 
(b) and reflection ; (c) discoveries; (d) inventions ; (e) accumulation of ac¬ 
quired knowledge). “ Labor and capital ” (“ capital ” is the money invested 
in a business). 


CXIV.—THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. 

1. The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat 

The soldier’s last tattoo ; 

No more on life’s parade shall meet 
That brave and fallen few. 

On Fame’s eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread, 

And glory guards, with solemn round, 
The bivouac of the dead. 

2. No rumor of the foe’s advance 

Now swells upon the wind; 

No troubled thought at midnight haunts 
Of loved ones left behind ; 

No vision of the morrow’s strife 
The warrior’s dream alarms; 

No braying horn or screaming fife 
At dawn shall call to arms. 




352 


FIFTH READER. 


3. Their shivered swords are red with rust; 

Their plumed heads are bowed ; 

Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, 

Is now their martial shroud ; 

And plenteous funeral-tears have washed 
The red stains from each brow ; 

And the proud forms, by battle gashed, 
Are free from anguish now. 

4. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 

The bugle’s stirring blast, 

The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout, are past. 

Not war’s w T ild note, nor glory’s peal, 
Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that nevermore may feel 
The rapture of the fight. 

5. Like the fierce Northern hurricane 

That sweeps his great plateau, 

Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, 
Comes down the serried foe. 

Who heard the thunder of the fray 
Break o’er the field beneath, 

Knew w^ell the watchword of that day 
Was “Victory, or death ! ” 

6. Full many a mother’s breath has swept 

O’er Angostura’s plain, 

And long the pitying sky has wept 
Above its mouldered slain. 

The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight, 

Or shepherd’s pensive lay, 

Alone now wake each solemn height 
That frowned o’er that dread fray. 


FIFTH READER. 


853 


7. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 

Ye must not slumber there, 

Where stranger-steps and tongues resound 
Along the heedless air ! 

Your own proud land’s heroic soil 
Shall be your titter grave : 

She claims from War its richest spoil— 

The ashes of her brave. 

8. Thus, ’neath their parent turf they rest, 

Far from the gory field, 

Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast 
On many a bloody shield. 

The sunshine of their native sky 
Smiles sadly on them here, 

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by 
The heroes’ sepulcher. 

9. Best on, embalmed and sainted dead ! 

Dear as the blood ye gave, 

No impious footstep here shall tread 
The herbage of your grave. 

Nor shall your glory be forgot 
While Fame her record keeps, 

Or honor points the hallowed spot 
Where valor proudly sleeps. 

10. Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone 
In deathless song shall tell, 

When many a vanished year hath flown, 

The story how ye fell; 

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight, 
Nor Time’s remorseless doom, 

Can dim one ray of holy light 
That gilds your glorious tomb. 

Theodore O'Hara. 


354 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation.— I. Written on the occasion of the removal of the 
remains of the Kentucky soldiers, who fell at Buena Vista, to their native 
State. The poet had served in the Mexican War (he died in Alabama in 
1867). “Angostura” (a pass occupied by a detachment of the American 
army at the commencement of the engagement, situated one or two miles 
northeast of Buena Vista). “ Dark and Bloody Ground ” (this is the mean¬ 
ing of the Indian word “ Kentucky ”). “ Borne on a shield,” etc. (8)— 

what allusion here ? (See VII., note.) Compare stanza 9 with Collins’s ode, 
“ How sleep the Brave ? ” (XII.) 

II. Biv'-oua« (bivfwak), s51'-emn (-5m), wind, haunts, vi§'-ion 
(vizii'un), swordg (sordz), haugh'-ty (haw'-), mar'-tial, (shai), an'-guish 
(ang'gwish), neigh'-ing (na'-), pla-teau' (-to'), s6p'-ul~eher, em-balmed' 
(-bamd'), tomb (toom). 

III. “ Heroes’ ”—explain es ’ (8). Change has so as to make it refer to 
more than one ;— left and loved so as to express present time ;— eagle's so 
as to refer to more than one. 

IV. Tattoo, parade, rumor, cannonade, pensive, heedless, Spartan, mar¬ 
ble, gory, “ minstrel’s voiceless stone,” serried. 

V. What personification in the first stanza ? “ Martial shroud ”—note 
the frequency with which this image recurs in poems on war (burial with¬ 
out the usual forms being connected with battles). Simile in 5th stanza ? 
(The hurricane that sweeps the Mexican plateau.) Is “herbage” (9) a 
good word in the place where it is used ? What is “ Time’s remorseless 
doom” (10)? 


CXV.—INFLUENCE OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE 
BIBLE UPON LITERATURE. 

1. The translation of the Bible was the chief engine 
in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, 
the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had 
been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the vis¬ 
ions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired 
teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a 
common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burned 
within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, 
by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. 



FIFTH READER. 


333 


2. It cemented their union of character and sentiment; 
it created endless diversity and collision of opinion. They 
found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive, in 
the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to 
exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and 
the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. 

3. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding 
by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, 
and embraces the will by their infinite importance. We 
perceive in the history of this period a nervous masculine 
intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, 
if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity 
which gives a tone to its general character. But there is 
a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of impres¬ 
sion, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual 
fervor and enthusiasm, in their method of handling almost 
every subject. 

4. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and 
subtle enough, but they wanted interest and grandeur, 
and were, besides, confined to a few ; they did not affect 
the general mass of the community. But the Bible was 
thrown open to all ranks and conditions “to run and 
read,” with its wonderful table of contents from Genesis 
to the Revelation. Every village in England would pre¬ 
sent the scene so well described in Burns’s “Cotter’s 
Saturday Night.” 

5. I cannot think that all this variety and weight of 
knowledge could be thrown in all at once upon the mind 
of the people and not make some impression upon it, the 
traces of which might be discerned in the manners and 
literature of the age. 


William Hazlitt. 


356 


FIFTH READER. 


For Preparation. —I. The translation called “King James’s Version” 
was made in 1611, by a commission of fifty-four learned men. “ Debates of 
the schoolmen wanted interest and grandeur ” (i. e., to us and our times. His¬ 
tory shows that the people of the Middle Ages were intensely interested in 
these debates—and well they might be; for the subtle distinctions made in 
them related to the questions of human freedom and immortality, and to 
God’s existence). Burns’s “ Cotter’s Saturday Night ”—have you read it ? 

II. Tr£a§'-ure§ (trSzh'yyrz), ea'-ger-ness, pur-suit' (-s&to, main-tam'- 
ing, sub'-tle-ty (sut'i-), -etfn-sgi-Sn'-tious (-shi-en'shus), se-v8r'-i-ty, grand'- 
eur (-yur), proph'-ets (and prof'-its). 

III. What is the abbreviation for William?—for manuscript? Tell 
three cases where you would begin a word with a capital. 

IV. Translation, engine, shrine, revealed, visions, conveyed, inspired, 
cemented, created, diversity, collision, opinion, faculties, motive, magnitude, 
consequences, utmost, intrepidity, controversy, remoteness, topics, infinite, 
period, nervous, intellect, levity, relaxation, intense, gravity, piety, serious¬ 
ness, argument, habitual, fervor, enthusiasm, community, literature. 

V. The effects of the translation of the Bible upon the minds of com¬ 
mon people—name these in order, numbering them 1, 2, 3, etc., stating them 
in your own words. Tell how “ remoteness of the topics ” discussed sharp¬ 
ens the understanding (far removed from our bodily wants and immediate 
necessities, which are so apt to absorb the mind; the power to turn the 
mind from the consideration of bodily wants and desires, and fasten it on 
“ remote subjects,” being a power necessary to the scientific as well as the 
religious mind). 


CXVI.—SONG OF THE SILENT LAND. 

1. Into the Silent Land! 

Ah, who shall lead us thither ? 

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, 
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. 

Who leads us w T ith a gentle hand 
Thither, O thither, 

Into the Silent Land ? 

2. Into the Silent Land ! 

To you, ye boundless regions 

Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions 




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357 


Of beauteous souls! The Future’s pledge and band! 

Who in Life’s battle firm doth stand, 

Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms 
Into the Silent Land ! 

3. O Land! O Land ! 

For all the broken-hearted 

The mildest herald by our fate allotted, 

Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand 

To lead us with a gentle hand 

To the land of the great departed— 

Into the Silent Land ! 

Johann Gaudenz von Salis {II. W. Longfellow's Trans.). 

For Preparation.—I. This translation, and “ The Castle by the Sea ” 
(Fourth Reader, 207), are introduced by Longfellow in the course of his 
prose romance “ Hyperion.” The excellence of translation, before noted— 
which makes Longfellow’s translations read like original poems—may be 
observed here. 

II. Shat'-tered, bound'-less, blbs'-soms, her'-ald, pledge (plSj), 
beau'-te-ous (b&'-), al-15t'-ted. 

III. What personifications in this piece ? What metaphors ? Divide 
the lines of the first stanza into feet. 

IY. Thither, morning-visions, inverted, beckons. 

Y. “ Who in life’s battle firm . . . shall bear ” (the subject of “ shall 
bear ” is the whole clause from “ who ” to “ doth stand.” “ Inverted torch ” 
(the symbol of death). “ Herald . . . beckons for all the broken-hearted 
. . . and . . . doth stand ... to lead us with a gentle hand.” 


CXVII.—BEETHOVEN’S MOONLIGHT SONATA. 

1. It happened at Bonn. One moonlight winter’s 
evening I called upon Beethoven, for I wanted him to 
take a w r alk, and afterward sup with me. In passing 
through some dark, narrow street, he paused suddenly. 





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FIFTH READER. 


“ Hush ! ” he said—“ what sound is that ? It is from my 
sonata in F! ” he said, eagerly. “ Hark ! how well it is 
played! ” 

2. It was a little, mean dwelling, and we paused out¬ 
side and listened. The player went on; but in the midst 
of the finale there was a sudden break, then the voice of 
sobbing. “ I cannot play any more. It is so beautiful, 
it is utterly beyond my power to do it justice. Oh, what 
would I not give to go to the concert at Cologne ! ” 

“Ah, my sister,” said her companion, “why create 
regrets, when there is no remedy ? We can scarcely pay 
our rent.” 

3. “You are right; and yet I wish for once in my 
life to hear some really good music. But it is of no use.” 

Beethoven looked at me. “ Let us go in,” he said. 

“ Go in! ” I exclaimed. “ What can we go in for ? ” 

“I will play to her,” he said, in an excited tone. 
“Here is feeling—genius—understanding. I will play 
to her, and she will understand it.” And, before I could 
prevent him, his hand was upon the door. 

4. A pale young man was sitting by the table, mak¬ 
ing shoes; and near him, leaning sorrowfully upon an 
old-fashioned harpsichord, sat a young girl, with a pro¬ 
fusion of light hair falling over her bent face. Both 
were cleanly but very poorly dressed, and both started 
and turned toward us as we entered. 

“ Pardon me,” said Beethoven, “ but I heard music, 
and was tempted to enter. I am a musician.” 

5. The girl blushed, and the young man looked grave 
—somewhat annoyed. 

“I—I also overheard something of what you said,” 
continued my friend. “You wish to hear—that is, you 
would like—that is— Shall I play for you ? ” 


FIFTH READER. 


359 


6. There was something so odd in the whole affair, 
and something so comic and pleasant in the manner of 
the speaker, that the spell was broken in a moment, and 
all smiled involuntarily. 

“ Thank you 1” said the shoemaker; “but our harpsi¬ 
chord is so wretched, and we have no music.” 

“ No music! ” echoed my friend. “ How, then, does 
the Fraulein—” 

Y. He paused, and colored up, for the girl looked full 
at him, and he saw that she was blind. 

“ I—I entreat your pardon! ” he stammered. “ But I 
had not perceived before. Then you play by ear ? ” 

“ Entirely.” 

“And where do you hear the music, since you fre¬ 
quent no concerts ? ” 

“ I used to hear a lady practising near us, when we 
lived at Bruhl two years. During the summer evenings 
her windows were generally open, and I walked to and 
fro outside to listen to her.” 

8. She seemed shy; so Beethoven said no more, but 
seated himself quietly before the piano, and began to play. 
He had no sooner struck the first chord, than I knew what 
would follow—how grand he would be that night. And 
I was not mistaken. Never, during all the years I knew 
him, did I hear him play as he then played to that blind 
girl and her brother. He was inspired; and from the 
instant when his fingers began to wander along the keys, 
the very tone of the instrument began to grow sweeter 
and more equal. 

9. The brother and sister were silent with wonder 
and rapture. The former laid aside his work ; the latter, 
with her head bent slightly forward, and her hands 
pressed tightly over her breast, crouched down near the 


360 


FIFTH READER. 


end of the harpsichord, as if fearful lest even the beating 
of her heart should break the flow of those magical, 
sweet sounds. It was as if we were all bound in a 
strange dream, and only feared to wake. 

10. Suddenly the flame of the single candle wavered, 
sank, flickered, and went out. Beethoven paused, and I 
threw open the shutters, admitting a flood of brilliant 
moonlight. The room was almost as light as before, and 
the illumination fell strongest upon the piano and player. 
But the chain of his ideas seemed to have been broken 
by the accident. His head dropped upon his breast; his 
hands rested upon his knees; he seemed absorbed in 
meditation. It was thus for some time. 

11. At length the young shoemaker rose, and ap¬ 
proached him eagerly, yet reverently. “ Wonderful 
man ! ” he said, in a low tone, “ who and what are you ? ” 

The composer smiled as he only could smile, benevo¬ 
lently, indulgently, kingly. “ Listen! ” he said, and he 
played the opening bars of the sonata in F. 

A cry of delight and recognition burst from them 
both, and exclaiming, “ Then you are Beethoven ! ” they 
covered his hands with tears and kisses. 

He rose to go, but we held him back with entreaties. 

“ Play to us once more—only once more ! ” 

12. He suffered himself to be led back to the instru¬ 
ment. The moon shone brightly in through the window 
and lit up his glorious, rugged head and massive figure. 
“I will improvise a sonata to the moonlight!” looking up 
thoughtfully to the sky and stars. Then his hands dropped 
on the keys, and he began playing a sad and infinitely, 
lovely movement, which crept gently over the instrument 
like the calm flow of moonlight over the dark earth. 



FIFTH HEADER. 


361 


13. This was followed by a wild, elfin passage in tri¬ 
ple time—a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance 
of sprites upon the sward. Then came a swift agitato 
finale —a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, de¬ 
scriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague, impulsive 
terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and 
left us all in emotion and wonder. 

“ Farewell to you! ” said Beethoven, pushing back his 
chair and turning toward the door—“ farewell to you! ” 

“ You will come again ? ” asked they, in one breath. 

14. He paused, and looked compassionately, almost 
tenderly, at the face of the blind girl. “ Yes, yes,” he 
said, hurriedly, “ I will come again, and give the Frau- 
lein some lessons. Farewell! I will soon come again! ” 

They followed us in silence more eloquent than 
words, and stood at their door till we were out of sight 
and hearing. 

“ Let us make haste back,” said Beethoven, “ that I 
may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it.” 

We did so, and he sat over it till long past day-dawn. 
And this was the origin of that moonlight sonata with 
which we are all so fondly acquainted. 


For Preparation. — I. Where is Bonn ?—Cologne ?—Bruhl ? The sonata 
in C sharp minor, popularly called the “ Moonlight Sonata,” because its first 
movement suggests the moon gliding through fleecy clouds. Like all works 
of art, it bears other interpretations, which, however, agree internally. The 
moonlight has a certain correspondence to memory—reflected light—reflec¬ 
tion of the past. And it is certain that Beethoven portrays in this move¬ 
ment his memory of happy hours with a friend, and in the latter part of the 
sonata his grief at parting, and his attempt to drown his sorrow by hard 
work at his vocation. The sonata in F (minor) is considered his greatest. 

II. Hap'-pened (-pnd), Bee'-tho-ven (Ba'->, walk' (wawk), sM'-den-ly, 
sym'-pho-ny, ea'-ger-ly, list'-ened (lis'nd), fi-na'-le (fe-na'ia), break, 
voice, -6/O-logne' (Ko-lon'), -eom-pan'-ion (-yun), shoes (sho"oz), old-fash'- 
16 



362 


FIFTH READER. 


ioned, Frau'-lein (froi'ifn), per-Qeived', fre-qubnt', -ehord, e'-qual, brill'- 
iant, pi-a'-no, gro-tSsque' (-t<Ssk'). 

III. Explain the use of the dash wherever it occurs in this piece; also 
the quotation-marks. 

IV. Regrets, remedy, harpsichord, annoyed, pardon, magical, absorbed, 
recognition, sward, improvise, elfin, sprites, eloquent, agitato finale , Frau- 
lein (miss, or maiden). 

V. The second movement is called a “ grotesque interlude.” Explain 
this phrase. Explain “ triple time.” Do you know any pieces of music 
which (without words) call up feelings and emotions that may be expressed 
in words, or suggest images that may be described like scenes and events ? 
To what extent do you consider this to be possible ? Have you ever heard 
any of Richard Wagner’s compositions ?—Rossini’s overture to “ William 
Tell”? 


CXVIII.—DARKNESS—A DREAM. 

1. I had a dream which was not all a dream: 

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 

Rayless, pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; 
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day ; 
And men forgot their passions in the dread 
Of this their desolation; and all hearts 
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light: 

2. And they did live by watch-fires ; and the thrones, 
The palaces of crowned kings, the huts, 

The habitations of all things which dwell, 

Were burnt for beacons ; cities were consumed, 

And men were gathered round their blazing homes, 
To look once more into each other’s face. 

Happy were they who dwelt within the eye 
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch. 



FIFTH READER. 


363 


A fearful hope was all the world contained; 

Forests were set on fire; but hour by hour 
They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks 
Extinguished with a crash—and all was black. 

3. The brows of men, by the despairing light, 

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 

The flashes fell upon them. Some lay down, 

4. And hid their eyes, and wept; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smiled; 
And others hurried to and fro, and fed 

Their funeral-piles w T ith fuel, and looked up 
With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 

The pall of a past world ; and then again 
With curses cast them down upon the dust, 

And gnashed their teeth, and howled. 

5. The wild birds shrieked, 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 

And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 
Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawled, 

And twined themselves among the multitude, 

Hissing but stingless—they were slain for food ; 

And war, which for a moment was no more, 

Did glut himself again. A meal was bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart, 

Gorging himself in gloom. 

6. Ho love was left; 

All earth was but one thought: and that was death, 
Immediate and inglorious ; and the pang 
Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men 
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; 
The meager by the meager were devoured. 


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E’en dogs assailed their masters—all save one, 

And he was faithful to a corpse, and kept 
The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay, 

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food, 
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan, 

And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answered not with a caress, he died. 

7. The crowd was famished by degrees: but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 

And they were enemies ; they met beside 
The dying embers of an altar-place, 

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 
For an unholy usage ; they raked up, 

And, shivering, scraped with their cold skeleton-hands 
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 
Blew for a little life, and made a flame 
Which was a mockery ; then they lifted up 
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died— 
Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 
Famine had written “ Fiend.” 


8. The world was void ; 

The populous and the powerful was a lump, 
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— 

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depth ; 

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped, 
They slept on the abyss, without a surge— 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their graves ; 


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365 


The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 

The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 

And the clouds perished ; darkness had no need 
Of aid from them—she was the universe. 

Lord Byron. 

For Preparation. — I. What other poems of Byron have you read? 
(VI., XXII., LXXV., LXXXVI.) Name some of the characteristics in them 
common to this poem. ( See notes to the previous extracts from Byron; 
mark also the passages in this piece that describe human hate and lone¬ 
liness, lack of sympathy, the contrast with the faithfulness of a dog. Byron 
excelled most in this species of poetry.) 

II. Ex-tm'-guished (eks-ting'gwisht), bea'-€on§ (bo'fenz), vol--ea'-noe§, 
gnashed (nasht), shrieked (shreekt), fam'-me (-in), mea'-ger, pit'-e-ous, 
-eha'-os, a-byss'. 

III. Mark off the feet in the 3d paragraph. Crowned, clinched (the 
accent shows that ed is to be pronounced as a separate syllable in this place). 

IV. Desolation, despairing, aspects, hideousness, void, surge, expired, 
stagnant, perished, universe, “ pang of famine fed ” (hunger gnawed). 

V. What intimation in the words, “not all a dream”? Give, in your 

own words, the sense of “ swung blind and blackening.” How could “ morn 
come ” without bringing day ? “ Forgot their passions ”—explain. Explain 

“ within the eye of volcanoes.” “ Funeral-piles ”—what is referred to ? Why 
“ useless wings ” ? “ Their bones were tombless as their flesh ” (because 

even bones were consumed for food). Show how the incident of the one 
faithful dog (6) heightens the pathos of the piece. “ Dying embers of an 
altar-place ”—what addition of horror from the place ? Explain “ the moon 
their mistress.” 


CXIX.—GOD’S MIGHTINESS AND TENDERNESS. 

1. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the’earth: 
and the heavens are the work of thy hands. 

2. They shall perish, hut thou slialt endure: yea, all 
of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt 
thou change them, and they shall be changed: 

3. -But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no 

end. _ 





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4. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, 
and plenteous in mercy. 

5. He will not always chide: neither will he keep 
his anger forever. 

6. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor re¬ 
warded us according to our iniquities. 

7. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great 
is his mercy toward them that fear him. 

8. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he 
removed our transgressions from us. 

9. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear him. 

10. For he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that 
we are dust. 

11. As for man, his days are as grass : as a flower of 
the field, so he flourisheth. 

12. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and 
the place thereof shall know it no more. 

13. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to 
everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteous¬ 
ness unto children’s children; to such as keep his cove¬ 
nant, and to those that remember his commandments to 
do them. 

From Psalms CII. and CIII. 


For Preparation. —I. For examples of sublimity in literature, one must 
turn first of all to the Bible. The beautiful charms and attracts us, but 
the sublime fills us with awe. The attempt to express the elevation of 
the soul above finite things—visible and tangible realities—produces the 
sublime ; the infinite is described to us as being incapable of finding ade¬ 
quate expression or representation in the visible world. In Hebrew poetry, 
the grandeur of the real world, with all its splendor, pomp, and magnifi¬ 
cence, is a mere accident, an instrument, a “ transient meteor,” in compari- 



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367 


son with the eternal and immutable Being. For the best example of sublime 
language, see Psalm civ. (Lesson LXXXIX). For an explanation of the 
rhythm and rhyme of Hebrew poetry, see CIII., note. Apply that theory to 
this piece, and show the parallelism—e. g., § 1, laid foundation of earth vs. 
heavens , work of thy hand; § 2, perish vs. endure ; garment synonym of 
vesture; wax old , change , he changed (synonyms and tautology); the same 
(repeated in) years have no end. Here is rhyme of ideas but not of words. 

II. Earth (erth), heav'-en§ (hSv'nz), -eon-tin'-ue, mer'-^i-ful, plen'-te- 
ous, nei'-ther, pit'-i-eth, field. 

III. Correct “ you art,” “ thou are,” “ ye is,” “ I are,” “ we hath.” 
What is peculiar to the “ solemn style ” of the Bible ? 

IV. Endure, wax, vesture, established, gracious, chide, iniquities, trans¬ 
gressions, flourisheth, “ everlasting covenant.” 

Y. Explain the phrase, “ after our sins.” In what sense, “ removed our 
transgressions ” ? Explain, “ knoweth our frame ”;—“ we are dust ” ;— 
“ everlasting to everlasting” (endless past to endless future). 


cxx.— WASHINGTON. 

1. His mind was great and powerful, without being 
of the very first order; his penetration strong, though 
not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and, 
as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. 

2. It was slow in operation, being little aided by in¬ 
vention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence 
the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he 
derived from councils of war, where, hearing all sugges¬ 
tions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no 
general ever planned his battles more judiciously. 

3. But if deranged during the course of the action, if 
any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circum¬ 
stances, he was slow in readjustment. The consequence 
was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against 



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an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was 
incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with tbe 
calmest unconcern. 

4. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was 
prudence: never acting until every circumstance, every 
consideration, was maturely weighed: refraining, if he 
saw a doubt, hut, when once decided, going through with 
his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity 
was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever 
known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of 
friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. 

5. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, 
a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally 
irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution 
had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If 
ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremen¬ 
dous in his wrath. 

6. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; lib¬ 
eral in contributions to whatever promised utility, but 
frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and 
all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not 
warm in its affections, but he exactly calculated every 
man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned 
to it. 

7. His person, you know, was fine; his stature exactly 
what one would wish ; his deportment easy, erect, and 
noble ; the best horseman of his age, and the most grace¬ 
ful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although, in 
the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved 
with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his col¬ 
loquial talents were not above mediocrity: possessing 
neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. 


FIFTH READER. 


369 


8. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, 
he was unready, short, and embarrassed; yet he wrote 
readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. 
This he had acquired by conversation with the world; 
for his education was merely reading, writing, and com¬ 
mon arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later 
day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading 
little, and that only in agriculture and English history. 
His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, 
with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied 
most of his leisure hours within doors. 

9. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, per¬ 

fect—in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it 
may be truly said, that never did Nature and Fortune com¬ 
bine more completely to make a man great, and to place 
him in the same constellation with whatever worthies 
have merited from man an everlasting remembrance; for 
his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the 
armies of his country successfully through an arduous 
war for the establishment of its independence, of con¬ 
ducting its councils through the birth of a government 
new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down 
into a quiet and orderly train, and of scrupulously obey¬ 
ing the laws through the whole of his career, civil and 
military: of which the history of the world furnishes no 
other example. _ Thomas Jefferson. 

For Preparation. —I. Give an account of the author of this piece. Was 
he similar, in cast of mind and occupation in life, to Washington ? (The 
opposite rather: while the latter was almost wholly practical, the life of 
the Will, the former was theoretical, the life of the Intellect. To Washing¬ 
ton we owe the victories of the Revolution, to Jefferson the framing of that 
most wonderful piece of organic law, the Constitution of the United States. 
Upon this as a model is formed every State Constitution, and almost every 
municipal charter and government, in our nation.) Does this make his 



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praise more or less valuable ? Who were Newton, Bacon, Locke ? What 
great papers of state were prepared by Jefferson ? 

II. Aid'-ed, -ealm'-est (kam'-), feat'-ure (fet'yur), -ehar'-a-e-ter, 
weighed (wad), doubt (dout), as-g&nd'-en-gy, un-yield'-ing, glr'-ele, 
neg'-es-sa-ri-ly, pro-geed'-ing§, lei'-§ure (le'zhur), ard'-u-ous, -eoun'-gil§. 

III. Difference between “ statue,” “ statute,” and “ stature ” ?—copious, 
fluent, and diffuse ? 

IY. Penetration, acute, invention, suggestions, judiciously, dislocated, 
incapable, maturely, refraining, integrity, inflexible, consanguinity, bias, 
irritable, utility, “ visionary projects,” copiousness. 

Y. Which feature of Washington’s character does he consider the 
strongest ? Can you relate an event that will support this view ? “ Wise, 

good, and great man” (5)—excluding wisdom and goodness, what other 
qualities are included under “great,” do you think? Do “irritable” 
and “high-toned” harmonize, or contrast in meaning, as the author in¬ 
tended them ? Should we not say “ high-strung ” for “ high-toned ” ? Is 
“ most tremendous ” a good expression ? Note the use of “ copiousness ” 
(of ideas) and “ fluency ” (of words). Name the points mentioned as mak¬ 
ing Washington’s a singular destiny and without a parallel. 


CXXI.—DECORATION OF THE SOLDIERS’ GRAVES. 

1. Sleep sweetly in your humble graves— 

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause! 

Though yet no marble column craves 
The pilgrim here to pause. 

2. In seeds of laurel in the earth 

The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 

The shaft is in the stone ! 

3. Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years 

Which keep in trust your storied tombs, 
Behold! your sisters bring their tears, 

And these memorial blooms. 




FIFTH READER. 


371 


4. Small tributes! But jour shades will smile 

More proudly on these wreaths to-day, 

Than when some cannon-moulded pile 
Shall overlook this bay. 

5. Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! 

There is no holier spot of ground 
Than where defeated valor lies, 

By mourning beauty crowned! 

Henry Timrod. 

For Preparation.—I. Ode sung on the occasion of decorating the 
graves of the Confederate dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S. C., 
1867. 

II. Mar'-tyr§ (-turz), -eSl'-umn (-um), pause (pawz), lau'-rel, ho'-li-er. 

III. Meaning of “! ” after “ tributes ” ?— ovei' in “ overlook ” ? 

IV. Behalf, tributes, valor, ode. 

V. Explain “ cannon-moulded pile.” What is it that is “ behalf the 
tardy years ” ? What is meant by “ memorial blooms ” ? 


CXX1I.—THE WAY TO WEALTH. 

1. Courteous Header : I have heard that nothing 
gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works 
respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much 
I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to 
relate to you. 

2. I stopped my horse, lately, where a great number 
of people were collected at an auction of merchants’ 
goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were 
conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the 
company called to a plain, clean old man, with white 
locks: “ Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the 
times 2 Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the coun- 




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try ? How shall we ever be able to pay them ? What 
would you advise us to do ? ” 

3. Father Abraham stood up and replied: “ If you 
would have my advice, I will give it to you in short; for 
‘a word to the wise is enough/ as Poor Richard says.” 
They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and, gath¬ 
ering around him, he proceeded as follows: “ Friends,” 
said he, “ the taxes are indeed very heavy ; and, if those 
laid on by the Government were the only ones we had 
to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we 
have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. 

4. “We are taxed twice as muck by our idleness, 
three times as much by our pride, and four times as much 
by our folly ; and of these taxes the commissioners can¬ 
not ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. How¬ 
ever, let us hearken to good advice, and something may 
be done for us. £ Heaven helps them that help them¬ 
selves/ as Poor Richard says. 

5. “It would be thought a hard government that 
should tax its people one-tenth part of their time to be 
employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us 
much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely 
shortens life. ‘Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than 
labor wears; while the used key is always bright/ as 
Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary 
do we spend in sleep! forgetting that ‘ the sleeping fox 
catches no poultry/ and that there will be sleeping 
enough in the grave. 

6. “ ‘ Lost time is never found again; and what we 
call time enough, always proves little enough.’ Let us, 
then, be up and doing, and doing to the purpose, so by 
diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. 6 Drive 


FIFTH READER. 


373 


thy business, and let not that drive thee;’ and ‘ early to 
bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, 
and wise,’ as Poor Richard says. 

7. “ So, what signifies wishing and hoping for better 
times? We may make these times better, if we bestir 
ourselves. ‘Industry need not wish, and he that lives 
upon hopes will die fasting.’ ‘ There are no gains with¬ 
out pains ; then help hands, for I have no lands.’ ‘ He 
that hath a trade, hath an estate; and he that hath a call¬ 
ing, hath an office of profit and honor;’ but then the 
trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, 
or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay 
our taxes. Work while it is called to-day, for you know 
not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. ‘ One 
to-day is worth two to-morrows,’ as Poor Richard says; 
and further, ‘Hever leave that till to-morrow which you 
can do to-day.’ 

8. “ If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed 
that a good master should catch you idle ? Are you, then, 
your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, 
when there is so much to be done for yourself, your fam¬ 
ily, and your country. It is true, there is much to be 
done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to 
it steadily, and you will see great effects; for ‘ constant 
dropping wears away stones,’ and ‘little strokes fell 
great oaks.’ 

9. “I think I hear some of you say, ‘Must a man 
afford himself no leisure ? ’ I will tell you, my friends, 
what Poor Richard says: ‘ Employ thy time well, if thou 
meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a 
minute, throw not away an hour.’ Leisure is time for 
doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man 


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will obtain, but the lazy man never; for ‘ a life of lei¬ 
sure and a life of laziness are two things.’ 

10. “But with our industry we must likewise be 
steady, settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs 
with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; 
for, as Poor Bichard says, ‘ Three removes are as bad as 
a fire; ’ and again, ‘ Keep thy shop, and thy shop will 
keep thee; ’ and again, ‘ If you would have your business 
done, go; if not, send;’ and again, 4 The eye of the 
master will do more work than both his hands ; 9 and 
again, ‘Want of care does us more damage than want of 
knowledge.’ 

11. “A man’s own care is profitable, for ‘if you 
would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve 
yourself.’ ‘ A little neglect may breed great mischief.’ 
‘ For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a 
shoe, the horse was lost; and, for want of a horse, the 
rider was lost,’ being overtaken and slain by the enemy 
—all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail. 

12. “ So much for industry, my friends, and atten¬ 
tion to one’s own business; but to these we must add 
frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly 
successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as 
he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone all his life, and 
die not worth a groat at last. ‘ If you would be wealthy, 
think of saving as well as of getting.’ ‘ The Indies have 
not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater 
than her incomes.’ 

13. “ Away with your expensive follies, and you will 
not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, 
heavy taxes, and chargeable families; for ‘what main¬ 
tains one vice would bring up two children.’ Beware of 


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375 


little expenses. ‘Many a little makes a mickle;’ ‘A 
small leak will sink a great skip.’ Here you are all got 
together at this sale of fineries and knickknacks. You 
call them goods, but, if you do not take care, they will 
prove evils to some of you. 

14. “ You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps 
they may he, for less than cost; but, if you have no occa¬ 
sion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what 
Poor Richard says: ‘ Buy what thou hast no need of, and 
ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.’ ‘ Silk, satins, 
scarlet, and velvets, put out the kitchen-fire.’ These are 
not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely he called 
the conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, 
how many want to have them! 

15. “ By these and other extravagances, the greatest 
are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those 
whom they formerly despised, but who, through industry 
and frugality, have maintained their standing. ‘If you 
would know the value of money, go and try to borrow 
some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing; ’ 
and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when 
he goes to get it again. 

16. “ It is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, 
as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. After 
all, this pride of appearance cannot promote health, nor 
ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; 
it creates envy; it hastens misfortunes. 

IT. “ But what madness it must he to run in debt for 
superfluities! Think what you do when you run in debt: 
you give, to another, power over your liberty. If you can¬ 
not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your 
creditor; you will he in fear when you speak to him; 


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you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by de¬ 
grees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, 
downright lying; for ‘ the second vice is lying, the first 
is running in debt, 5 as Poor Richard says; and again, 
6 Lying rides upon debt’s back.’ 

18. “When you have got your bargain, you may per¬ 
haps think little of payment; but ‘creditors have better 
memories than debtors ; creditors are a superstitious sect, 
great observers of days and times.’ If you bear your debt 
in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as 
it lessens, appear extremely short. 6 Those have a short 
Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.’ 

19. “ This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wis¬ 
dom ; but industry, and frugality, and prudence, may all 
be blasted without the blessing of Heaven. Therefore 
ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to 
those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and 
help them.” 

20. The old gentleman ended his harangue. The 
people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immedi¬ 
ately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a com¬ 
mon sermon; for the auction opened, and they began to 
buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thorough¬ 
ly studied my almanac, and digested all I had dropped 
on these topics during the course of twenty-five years. 
The frequent mention he made of me must have tired 
any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted 
with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of 
the wisdom was my own which he ascribed to me, but 
rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all 
ages and nations. 

21. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo 
of it; and, although I had at first determined to buy stuff 


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377 


for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one 
a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy 
profit will he as great as mine.—I am, as ever, thine to 
Serve thee. _ Benjamin Franklin. 

For Preparation.— I. From “Poor Richard’s Almanac” for the year 
l^S. Dr. Franklin wrote under the nom deplume of “ Richard Saunders,” 
called also “ Poor Richard.” In this piece he makes a sort of collection of 
his rules of economy. The maxims given in this piece are the key to thrift, 
and perhaps exercised more influence upon the American people belonging 
to the two generations succeeding the Revolution than any other writing. 

II. Griev'-oiis, bus'-i-ness (biz'-), prSf'-it-a-ble, su-e-^Sss'-ful, n&c'-es- 
sa-rie§, dil'-i-gen^e, min'-ute (-it). 

III. What is the root or radical of a word ? ( see CIV., where is given 
an illustration by means of the root gr). From raj, the Sanscrit (old 
Hindoo) for shine, or blaze out, come rajata , = silver, = shining metal (Lat. 
argentum); and rajah , = ruler, = one who is ax-rayed in glittering dress. 
{Rage= to blaze with anger.) So rays shine out from a centre, and what¬ 
ever shoots out from a centre may be named in the same way; hence radii 
(Latin for spokes of a wheel, raying out from the hub); rota, a wheel; 
radex, a root, Greek rhiza (raying out into the ground). Greek rhadix (the 
shoots or branches of a tree), a rod; so, for rajah, the Romans said rex 
(regs), meaning king, and rego = to rule ; whence rega\, regelate, regi liar, 
right, rectitude, erect, direct, etc. (The g drops out, and then we have rule, 
ruler, royal, etc.) 

IV. Quote, auction, frugality, chargeable, leisure. 

V. Make a list of the kinds of taxation mentioned in the piece be¬ 
sides government taxation. “ Creditors are a superstitious sect, great ob¬ 
servers of days and times ” (humorously called “ superstitious,” because, 
like superstitious people, they are very particular about demanding the 
money due them at the exact time—a business necessity, of course). 


CXXIII.—THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. 

1. There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 

And, with his sickle keen, 

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 

And the flowers that grow between. 




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2. “ Shall I have naught that is fair ? ” saith he ; 

“ Have naught hut the bearded grain ? 

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, 
I will give them all back again.” 

3. He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes; 

He kissed their drooping leaves; 

It was for the Lord of Paradise 
He bound them in his sheaves. 

4. “ My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,” 

The Reaper said, and smiled; 

“ Dear tokens of the earth are they, 

Where he was once a child. 

5. “ They shall all bloom in fields of light, 

Transplanted by my care; 

And saints, upon their garments white, 

These sacred blossoms wear.” 

6. And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 

The flowers she most did love; 

She knew she should find them all again, 

In the fields of light above. 

7. Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, 

The Reaper came that day; 

’Twas an angel visited the green earth, 

And took the flowers away. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 


For Preparation. —I. What pieces of this author have you read? 

II. Naught (nawt), par'-a-dise, sheaves, fields, wrath (rath). 

III. Explain the capitals used in the first stanza. Mark the feet and 
accented syllables in the first stanza. 

IV. Sickle, “ bearded grain,” sheaves, tokens. 



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379 


Y. What allegory is intended by Reaper, the grain, and the flowers ? 
Who is the Lord referred to, that needs “tokens of the earth, where he was 
once a child ” ? “ And the mother gave (6), in tears and pain” (here he 

comes out of the allegory, and makes a personal application of it). 


CXXIV.—THE VISION OF MIRZA. 

1. When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several 
Oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among 
others, I met with one entitled “ The Visions of Mirza,” 
which I have read with great pleasure. I intend to give 
it to the public when I have no other entertainment for 
them, and shall begin with the first vision, which I have 
translated word for word, as follows: 

2. On the fifth day of the moon—which, according to 
the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy—after 
having washed myself and offered up my morning devo¬ 
tions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to 
pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I 
was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I 
fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of hu¬ 
man life; and, passing from one thought to another, 
“ Surely,” said I, “ man is but a shadow, and life a 
dream.” 

3. While I was musing, I cast my eyes toward the 
summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I dis¬ 
covered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little mu¬ 
sical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he 
applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it» The 
sound of it was exceedingly sweet, and wrought into a 
variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and 
altogether different from anything I had ever heard. 
They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are 



380 


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played to the departed souls of good men upon their first 
arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last 
agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy 
place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. 

4. I had been often told that the rock before me was 
the haunt of a genius, and that several had been enter¬ 
tained with music who passed by it, but never heard that 
the musician had before made himself visible. When he 
had raised my thoughts by those transporting airs which 
he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, 
as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to 
me, and, by the waving of his hand, directed me to ap¬ 
proach the place where he sat. 

5. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a 
superior nature; and, as my heart was entirely subdued 
by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his 
feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look 
of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my 
imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and appre¬ 
hensions with which I approached him. He lifted me 
from the ground, and, taking me by the hand, “ Mirza,” 
said he, “I have heard thee in thy soliloquies. Follow 
me! ” 

6. He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the 

rock, and, placing me on the top of it, “ Cast thine eyes 
eastward,” said he, “ and tell me what thou seest.” “ I 
see,” said I, “a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of 
water rolling through it.” “ The valley that thou seest,” 
said he, “ is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that 
thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity.” “ What 
is the reason,” said I, “ that the tide I see rises out of a 
thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick 
mist at the other ? ” “ What thou seest,” said he, “ is 


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381 


that portion of eternity which is called Time, measured 
out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the 
world to its consummation.” 

7. “ Examine now,” said he, “ this sea that is bounded 
with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou dis- 
coverest in it.” “ I see a bridge,” said I, “ standing in the 
midst of the tide.” “ The bridge thou seest,” said he, 
“ is Human Life ; consider it attentively.” Upon a more 
leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of three¬ 
score and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, 
which, added to those that were entire, made up the 
number to about a hundred. As I was counting the 
arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at 
first of a thousand arches, but that a great flood swept 
away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition 
I now beheld it. 

8. “But tell me further,” said he, “what thou dis¬ 
co verest on it.” “ I see multitudes of people passing over 
it,” said I, “ and a black cloud hanging on each end of 
it.” As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the 
passengers dropping through the bridge into the great 
tide that flowed underneath it; and, upon further exam¬ 
ination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that 
lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no 
sooner trod upon but they fell through them into the tide, 
and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls 
were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that 
throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but 
many of them fell into them. They grew thinner toward 
the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together toward 
the end of the arches that were entire. 

9. There were, indeed, some persons, but their num¬ 
ber was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling 


382 


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march on the broken arches, bnt fell through one after 
another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk. 
I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonder¬ 
ful structure, and the great variety of objects which it 
presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy 
to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst 
of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that 
stood by them to save themselves. Some were look¬ 
ing up toward the heavens in a thoughtful posture, and, 
in the midst of speculation, stumbled, and fell out of 
sight. 

10. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bub¬ 
bles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them; 
but often, when they thought themselves within the 
reach of them, their footing failed, and down they sank. 
In this confusion of objects I observed some with scimi- 
ters in their hands, who ran to and fro upon the bridge, 
thrusting several persons on trap-doors which did not 
seem to lie in their way, and which they might have es¬ 
caped had they not been thus forced upon them. 

11. The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this 
melancholy prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough 
upon it. “Take thine eyes off the bridge,” said he, 
“ and tell me if thou seest anything thou dost not com¬ 
prehend.” Upon looking up, “What mean,” said I, 
“ those great flights of birds that are perpetually hover¬ 
ing about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to 
time ? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and, 
among many other feathered creatures, several little 
winged boys, that perch in great numbers upon the mid¬ 
dle arches.” “ These,” said the genius, “ are Envy, Ava¬ 
rice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like cares and 
passions that infest Human Life.” 


FIFTH READER. 


383 


12. I here fetched a deep sigh. “Alas,” said I, 
u man was made in vain! How is he given away to 
misery and immortality!—tortured in life, and swallowed 
up in death! ” The genius, being moved in compassion 
toward me, bade me quit so uncomfortable a prospect. 
“ Look no more,” said he, “ on man in the first stage of 
his existence, in his setting out for eternity, but cast 
thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears 
the several generations of mortals that fall into it.” I 
directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no 
the good genius strengthened it with any supernatural 
force, or dissipated part of the mist that was before too 
thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley opening 
at the farther end, and spreading forth into an immense 
ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant running through 
the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. 

13. The clouds still rested on one-half of it, inso¬ 
much that I could discover nothing in it; but the other 
appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable 
islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and 
interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that ran 
among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious 
habits, with garlands upon their heads, passing among 
the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or rest¬ 
ing on beds of flowers, and could hear a confused har¬ 
mony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and 
musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the 
discovery of so delightful a scene. 

14. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might 
fly away to those happy seats; but the genius told me 
there was no passage to them except through the Gates 
of Death that I saw opening every moment upon the 
bridge. “ The islands,” said he, “ that lie so fresh and 


384 


flFTH READER. 

green before thee, and with which the whole face of the 
ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more 
in number than the sands on the sea-shore; there are 
myriads of islands behind those which thou here discover- 
est, reaching farther than thine eye, or even thine imagi¬ 
nation, can extend itself. 

15. These are the mansions of good men after death, 
who, according to the degree and kinds of virtue in 
which they excelled, are distributed among these several 
islands, which abound with pleasures of different kinds 
and degrees, suitable to the relishes and perfections of 
those who are settled in them. Every island is a para¬ 
dise accommodated to its respective inhabitants. Are 
not these, O Mirza! habitations worth contending for ? 
Does life appear miserable, that gives the opportunities of 
earning such a reward % Is death to be feared, that will 
convey thee to so happy an existence? Think not man was 
made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him.” 
I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on these happy islands. 

16. At length said I: “ Show me now, I beseech 
thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds 
which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of 
adamant.” The genius making me no answer, I turned 
about to address myself to him a second time, but I found 
that he had left me. I then turned again to the vision 
which I had been so long contemplating, but, instead of 
the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, 
I saw nothing but the long, hollow valley of Bagdat, with 
oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it. 

Joseph Addison. 


For Preparation. — I. Where is Grand Cairo?—Bagdat? Why does 
the author pretend to give us the contents of a manuscript he has found ? 
(Think of the pleasure an author has in half-concealing, half-revealing, his 



FIFTH READER. 


385 


thought; of the intellectual activity it calls forth in his reader, and of the 
pleasure in discovery which the latter feels.) Contrast this allegory with 
that of the “Valley of Humiliation” and “Doubting Castle” of Bunyan. 
Which is more simple and natural ? Which is told with an air of the 
greater probability ? 

II. •6aI'-ro, vig'-iong (vlzk'unz), pub'-li-e, s§im'-i-ters, to'-ward 
(to'ard), sh&p'-herd (-erd), wrought (rawt), par'-a-dise, w'ear (war), haunt, 
gen'-ius, mu-gi'-cian (-zish'an), air§, ap-proach', dis-p811ed' (-peid'), pla<?'- 
ing, se'-est, rea'-gon (re'zn), e^-am'-ine, bridge, lei'-gure-ly (le'zhur-), 
stir'-vey, arch'-e§, peo'-ple (pe'pi), pas'-sen-ger§, -eon-healed', mSl'-an- 
eh51-y, pur-suit' (-sut'), danced, -ereat'-ureg, trap'-door, to-g§th'-er. 

III. Explain the use of capitals in § 11. Collect the samples of “an¬ 
cient” or “sacred” style (use of thou, - est , etc.). 

IV. Oriental, manuscripts, translated (1), “ fifth day of the moon,” fore¬ 
fathers, devotions, profound, contemplation, musing, instrument, qualify, 
raptures, visible, astonished, transporting, subdued, strains, compassion, 
affability, familiarized, imagination, apprehensions, soliloquies, pinnacle, 
prodigious, consummation, pitfalls, multiplied, speculation, multitudes, 
scimiters, cormorants, envy, avarice, superstition, despair, infest, mortality, 
tortured, supernatural, dissipated, garlands, myriads, mansions, excelled, 
relishes, opportunity, adamant. 

V. Is there any imitation of the style of the “ Arabian Nights ” in this 
article ? (Recently discovered, when this was written. The allusions to 
Bagdat, paradise, genius—the name Mirza, too—suggest that work.) Ex¬ 
plain, in the allegory, the “ threescore and ten arches,” and the “ thousand ” 
which it once had (with the earliest patriarchs). “ Dropping through the 
bridge ” means what ? What are some of the “ trap-doors ” ? (Pestilence, 
murder, accident, etc.) “ Pitfalls ”—why very thick at the entrance (infancy) 
and toward the end (old age) ? Why “ hobbling march,” “ gates of death ” ? 
(the “gates ” called “trap-doors” and “pitfalls” before). Is this a Chris¬ 
tian, or a Mohammedan, vision ? or does the author attempt to conceal the 
differences ? 


CXXV.—THE LAST MAN. 

1. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom— 
• The Sun himself must die, 

Before this mortal shall assume 
Its immortality ! 
n 



FIFTH HEADER. 

I saw a vision in my sleep, 

That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
A down the gulf of Time ! 

I saw the last of human mold, 

That shall Creation’s death behold, 

As Adam saw her prime ! 

2. The Sun’s eye had a sickly glare; 

The Earth with age was wan ; 

The skeletons of nations were 
Around that lonely man ! 

Some had expired in fight—the brands 
Still rusted in their bony hands; 

In plague and famine some! 

Earth’s cities had no sound or tread, 

And ships were drifting with the dead, 

To shores where all was dumb. 

3. Yet, propliet-like, that lone one stood, 

With dauntless words and high, 

That shook the sear leaves from the wood, 
As if a storm passed by, 

Saying: “We are twins in death, proud Sun 
Thy face is cold, thy race is run; 

’Tis Mercy bids thee go ; 

For thou, ten thousand thousand years, 

Hast seen the tide of human tears, 

That shall no longer flow. 

4. “ This spirit shall return to Him 

That gave its heavenly spark ; 

Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim, 

When thou thyself art dark ! 

Ho ! it shall live again, and shine 
In bliss unknown to beams of thine, 


FIFTH READER. 


387 


By Him recalled to breath, 

Who captive led captivity, 

Who robbed the grave of victory, 

And took the sting from Death ! 

5. “ Go, Sun, while mercy holds me up 
On Nature’s awful waste, 

To drink this last and bitter cup 
% Of grief that man shall taste. 

Go, tell the Night that hides thy face, 

Thou saw’st the last of Adam’s race, 

On Earth’s sepulchral clod, 

The darkening universe defy 
To quench his immortality, 

Or shake his trust in God! ” 

Thomas Campbell. 

For Preparation. —I. What pieces of Campbell have you read ? (VIII., 
and “ Hohenlinden,” in the Fourth Reader.) Can you describe their general 
character? (There are three stanzas omitted from the middle of this 
piece.) Compare with Byron’s “Dream,” CXVIII. 

II. Plague (plag), fam'-lne (-in), clt'-ie§, pr5ph'-et, a-gain' (-gen'), 
se-piil'-ehral. 

III. Him, Sun, Victory, Death (4)—why capitals ? 

IV. Assume, mold, prime, expired, clod, brands. 

V. Explain the expression, “ saw a vision ”;—the metaphor, “ adown the 
gulf of Time ” ;—the personification, “ Creation’s death ”;—“ skeletons of 
nations.” “ Ten thousand thousand ”—object of expressing the number in 
that way ? (The English way of expressing our ten millions ?) 


CXXVI.—GOOD MANNERS AT THE TABLE. 

1. Family reunions at meals should always be ren¬ 
dered pleasant and agreeable. The occasion is a proper 
one for the observance of all the social amenities, and 
should be marked by the most kindly interchange of 




388 


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thought and feeling. The minor etiquette of the table 
must always be remembered and observed. Overhaste 
in eating is as rude and vulgar as it is unhealthful. 

2. No family is too poor to have the table covered 
with a clean white cloth, ornamented with flowers in their 
season, and made inviting with refined manners and cheer¬ 
ful intercourse. 

3. As soon as you are seated, place your table-napkin 
across your knees and put your roll or bread on the left 
side of your plate. As soon as you are helped, begin to 
eat; or, if the viands are too hot, take up your knife and 
fork and prepare to begin. Never wait for others, and 
never offer to pass on the plate to which you have been 
helped—at least, unless there should be no servant in at¬ 
tendance. The lady of the house who sends your plate 
to you is the best judge of precedence at her own table. 
Soup and fish should never be partaken of a second time. 
Whenever there is a servant to help you, never help your¬ 
self or others, unless requested to do so'; when the ser¬ 
vant is near, catch his eye and ask for what you want. 
To make a noise with the mouth or lips while eating or 
drinking, to breathe hard, to cough or sneeze without 
covering the face with the napkin, to drink a whole glass¬ 
ful at once, or to drain a glass to the last drop, is inex¬ 
pressibly vulgar. 

4. The knife must never be carried to the mouth, nor 
should the spoon be, unless the nature of the food abso¬ 
lutely requires it. 

5. The bread by your plate is to be broken, never cut. 
Mustard, salt, etc., are put at the side of the plate, and 
one vegetable should never be heaped on the top of the 
other. The wineglass, if used, is held by the stem, and 


FIFTH READER. 


389 


never by the bowl; and the plate must never be tilted on 
any occasion. In eating, one must not bend the head 
voraciously over the plate, extend the elbows, rattle the 
knife and fork, or soil the table-cloth; but he must be 
quiet and gentle in all his movements. 

6. Anything like greediness, haste, or indecision, is ill- 
bred. Never take the choicest piece, nor^take up one 
piece and lay it down in favor of another, nor hesitate as 
to which piece you will take, or whether you will take one 
at all. To be particular about such trifles shows a degree 
of selfishness which is inconsistent with good manners. 

1. There are different ways of disposing of the stones 
and seeds of fruit, such as cherries, plums, raisins, etc. 
They should be conveyed from the mouth and deposited 
upon the side of the plate in the least offensive manner. 
Very dainty feeders press out the stones with the fork 
in the first instance, and thus get rid of the difficulty. 
This is the safest way for ladies. 

8. Taking wdne with people, and giving toasts at din¬ 
ners, once considered as traits of refinement, are now 
somewhat out of use in some parts of Christendom. To 
remain long in the dining-room after the ladies have left, 
is a poor compliment to both the hostess and her fair 
visitors. Still worse is it to rejoin them with a flushed 
face and impaired powers of thought. A refined gentle¬ 
man is always temperate. 

9. Nevertheless, if you arc asked to take wine, it is 
polite to select that which your interlocutor is drinking. 
If you invite a lady to take wine, you may ask her which 
she will prefer, and then take the same yourself. Should 
you, however, prefer some other vintage, you can take it, 
by courteously requesting her permission. 


390 


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10. Unless you are a total abstainer, it is extremely 
uncivil to decline taking wine if you are invited to do so. 
In accepting, you have only to pour a little fresh wine 
into your glass, look at the person who invites you, bow 
slightly, and take a sip. It is particularly ill-bred to 
empty your glass on these occasions. 

11. If you should unfortunately be so awkward as to 
overturn or break anything, never apologize for it; for 
there is simply no possible excuse for such a blunder. 

12. If you send your plate to be helped a second time, 
it is well to hold your knife and fork in the left hand. 

13. The lady of the house should never send away her 
plate, or appear to have done eating, till all her guests 
have finished. Nor should she reprove her servants be¬ 
fore guests, nor make excuses for anything that may go 
wrong. 

14. All well-ordered dinners begin with soup, whether 
in summer or winter. The lady of the house should help 
it, and send it round without asking each individual in 
turn—it is as much an understood thing as the bread 
beside each plate; and those who do not choose it are 
always at liberty to leave it untasted. 

15. Finger-glasses containing water slightly warmed 
and perfumed are placed before each person at dessert. 
In these you dip your fingers, wiping them afterward on 
your table-napkin. If the finger-glass and doily are placed 
on your dessert-plate, you should immediately remove the 
doily to the left hand, and place the finger-glass upon it. 

16. Never address your conversation to a person im¬ 
mediately on taking your seat at the table, because the 
partaking of food is regarded by some as a kind of sacra¬ 
ment, which they precede by a private grace whenever it 


FIFTH READER. 


391 


is omitted as a ceremony for the company present. By 
speaking to them at this moment, you might give them a 
disagreeable interruption. 

IT. It need hardly be said, that the proper place for 
eating is at the table, and that fruit or other kind of food 
should not be eaten in the streets, or at public assemblies, 
where it is not provided for all. Well-bred persons will 
always observe the proprieties of time and place. 

18. Never play with any of the things upon the table, 
or handle them idly ; nor make a grating noise with your 
chair on taking or leaving your place. 

19. Avoid hasty movements, and be sure that the food 
never falls from your plate upon the table-cloth. 

20. However poor or scanty the fare, let it be partaken 
of with a cheerful disposition and a proper observance of 
forms. 


For Preparation. —I. General John W. Phelps, feeling the importance 
of teaching the general precepts of good behavior in our schools, has pub¬ 
lished a small manual (Cheney & Clapp, Brattleboro 1 , Vt.), from which the 
above chapter is taken by permission. 

II. P18a§'-ant, pre-oed'-enge, in-de-Qi§'-ion (-sizh'un), doi'-ly (D’Oy- 
ley, its first maker), ^hris'-ten-dom (Km'n-dum), sa-e'-ra-ment. 

III. Explain re in reunions ;— est in choicest;— in in inexpressibly ;— cn 
in eaten. Correct u should not be ate.” 

IV. Define rendered, occasion, amenities, etiquette, vulgar, refined, vora¬ 
ciously, inconsistent, compliment, apologize, sacrament, viands. 

V. Classify the maxims above given under a few heads, as, for example, 
(a) position while eating; (b) care of finger-glasses and napkins; (c) disposi¬ 
tion of parts that cannot be eaten ; (d) wine ; (c) soup and fish ; (f) hasty 
movements, etc. Make, from the above, a list of ten maxims which you 
consider specially of importance. Compare these maxims with those col¬ 
lected by Washington (XLVI.). 



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FIFTH READER. 


CXXVI1.—NEW-YEAR’S EVE. 

1. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The flying cloud, the frosty light! 

The year is dying in the night; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die ! 

2. Ring out the old, ring in the new; 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow ! 

The year is going—let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

3. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 

For those that here we see no more ; 

Ring out the feud of rich and poor; 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

4. Ring out a slowly-dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 

Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

5. Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

The civic slander and the spite; 

Ring in the love of truth and right; 

Ring in the common love of good. 

6. Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old; 

Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

7. Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 

Ring out the darkness of the land; 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

Alfred Tennyson. 


FIFTH READER. 


393 


For Preparation.—I. Where is it the custom to ring the bells at mid¬ 
night when the New-Year begins ? 

II. Feud (fud), au'-cient (-shcnt), man'-nerg, val'-iant (-yant). 

III. Some suffixes are used to denote small objects of their kind (e. g., 
kin in lambkin (little lamb), ling in duckling (little duck), let in rivulet 
(little river), driblet (drop or drip-let); also, ie in such words as laddie , 
and many pet names of persons are spelled this way, to mean little or deli¬ 
cate (e. g., Katie = little Kate) ; y is used for ie in many of the names (e. g., 
Johnny, Nancy = little Ann, etc.). The suffix let is probably the same word 
originally as lit in little ; kin is the same as in kindred, and (like the Ger¬ 
man word Kind) means child. Words formed in this way are called “di¬ 
minutives.” Make a list of twenty diminutives. 

IV. Redress, “ saps the mind,” feud, “ party strife.” 

V. What personification is continued through the poem ? “For those 

that here we see no more ” (3) ( xohat is “ for those ” ?) What is meant 
by “ narrowing lust of gold ” ? Give an example to illustrate it. “ Thou¬ 
sand years of peace ” (the “ millennium,” see Revelation xx.). “ False 

pride in place and blood ” (pride on account of office, rank, or family con¬ 
nection). “ Civic slander ” (the slander used in political contests). 


CXXV111.—MIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 

1. The Virginians thronged toward the Ohio. An 
ax, a couple of horses, and a heavy rifle, with store of 
ammunition, were all that were considered necessary for 
the equipment of the man who, with his family, removed 
to the new State; assured that, in that land of exuberant 
fertility, he could not fail to provide amply for all his 
wants. 

2. To have witnessed the industry and perseverance 
of these emigrants must at once have proved the vigor 
of their minds. Regardless of the fatigue attending every 
movement which they made, they pushed through an 
unexplored region of dark and tangled forests, guiding 
themselves by the sun alone, and reposing at night on 
the bare ground. 



394 


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3. They had to cross numberless streams on rafts with 
their wives and children, their cattle, and their luggage ; 
often drifting to considerable distances before they could 
effect a landing on the opposite shores. Their cattle 
would often stray amid the rich pasturages of these 
shores, and occasion a delay of several days. 

4 To these troubles add the constantly impending 
danger of being murdered, while asleep in their encamp¬ 
ments, by the prowling and ruthless Indians. To encoun¬ 
ter difficulties like these must have required energies of 
no ordinary kind; and the reward which these veteran 
settlers enjoyed was doubtless well merited. 

5. Some removed from the Atlantic shores to those 
of the Ohio in more comfort and security; they had their 
wagons, their negroes, and their families; their way was 
cut through the woods by their ax-men the day before 
their advance; and, when night overtook them, the hunt¬ 
ers attached to the party came to the place pitched upon 
for encamping, loaded with the dainties of which the 
forest yielded an abundant supply; the blazing light of 
a huge fire guiding their steps as they approached, and 
the sounds of merriment that saluted their ears assuring 
them that all was well. 

6. The flesh of the buffalo, the bear, and the deer, 
soon hung in large and delicious steaks in front of the 
embers; the cakes, already prepared, w T ere deposited in 
their proper places, and, under the rich drip of the juicy 
roasts, were quickly baked. The wagons contained the 
bedding; and, while the horses which had drawn them 
were turned loose to feed on the luxuriant undergrowth of 
the woods, some perhaps hoppled, but the greater num¬ 
ber merely with a bell hung to their neck, to guide their 
owners in the morning to the spot where they may have 


FIFTH READER. 


395 


rambled, the party were enjoying themselves after the 
fatigues of the day. 

7. In anticipation, all is pleasure; and these migrat¬ 
ing bands feasted in joyous sociality, unapprehensive of 
any greater difficulties than those to be encountered in 
forcing their way through the pathless woods to the land 
of abundance; and although it took months to accom¬ 
plish the journey, and a skirmish now and then took 
place between them and the Indians, who sometimes 
crept unperceived into their very camp, still did the Vir¬ 
ginians cheerfully proceed toward the western horizon, 
until the various groups all reached the Ohio; when, 
struck with the beauty of that magnificent stream, they 
at once commenced the task of clearing land for the pur¬ 
pose of establishing a permanent residence. 

8. Others, perhaps encumbered with too much luggage, 
preferred descending the stream. They prepared arks 
pierced with port-holes, and glided on the gentle current; 
more annoyed, however, than those who marched by land, 
by the attacks of Indians, who watched their motions. 

9. Many travelers have described these boats, former¬ 
ly called arks , but now named flat-boats; but have they 
told you that in those times a boat thirty or forty feet 
in length, by ten or twelve in breadth, was considered a 
stupendous fabric ?—that this boat contained men, wom¬ 
en, and children, huddled together with horses, cattle, 
hogs, and poultry for their companions, while the re-^* 
maining portion was crammed with vegetables and pack¬ 
ages of seeds ? 

10. The roof or deck of the boat not unlike a 
farm-yard, being covered with hay, ploughs, carts, wag¬ 
ons, and various agricultural implements, together with 


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numerous others, among which the spinning-wheels of 
the matrons were conspicuous. Even the sides of the 
floating mass were loaded with the wheels of the differ¬ 
ent vehicles, which themselves lay on the roof. 

11. Have they told you that these boats contained the 
little all of each family of venturous emigrants, w T ho, fear¬ 
ful of being discovered by the Indians, moved about in 
darkness when night came on, groping their way from 
one part to another of these floating habitations, and de¬ 
nying themselves the comfort of fire or light, lest the foe 
that watched them from the shore should rush upon them 
and destroy them? Have they told you that this boat 
was used, after the tedious voyage was ended, as the first 
dwelling of these new settlers ? Ho ; such things have 
not been related to you before. 

12. I shall not describe the many massacres which 

took place among the different parties of white and red 
men, as the former moved down the Ohio, because I 
have never been very fond of battles, and, indeed, have 
always wished that the world were more peaceably in¬ 
clined than it is ; and I shall merely add that, in one way 
or another, Kentucky was wrested from the original 
owners of the soil. _ John James Audubon. 

For Preparation.—I. Over what mountains did these emigrants travel 
from Virginia ? “ Guiding themselves by the sun alone ”—how ? 

II. In'-diang (ind'yanz), ldad'-ed, yield'-ed, un-til', ve'-hi~eleg 
(-hi-kiz), mas'-sa~ere§ (-kerz), wr&st'-ed (rest'-), fa-tigue' Keeg'). 

HI. What are the forms denoting present time of crept, strucTc, were , 
did? The other forms are said to be “derived” from the forms denoting 
present time. What is “ attacked ” derived from ? 

IV. Ammunition, equipment, exuberant, amply, emigrants, luxuriant, 
anticipation, horizon^dnagnificent, permanent, stupendous, conspicuous, im¬ 
plements, veteran, massacres. 

V. What are port-holes used for ? 



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397 


CXXIX.—THE PROBLEM. 

1. I like a church; I like a cowl; 

I love a prophet of the soul; 

And on my heart monastic aisles 

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles; 

Yet not for all his faith can see, 

Would I that cowled churchman be. 

Why should the vest on him allure, 

Which I could not on me endure ? 

2. Not from a vain or shallow thought 
His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 

Never from lips of cunning fell 

The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 

Out from the heart of Nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old ; 

The litanies of nations came, 

Like the volcano’s tongue of flame, 

3. IJp from the burning core below— 

The canticles of love and woe ; 

The hand that rounded Peter’s dome, 

And groined the aisles of Christian Pome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity; 

Himself from God he could not free ; 

He builded better than he knew— 

The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

4. Know’st thou what wove yon wood-bird’s nest 
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast ? 

Or how the flsh outbuilt her shell, 

Painting with morn each annual cell ? 


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Or how the sacred pine-tree adds 
To her old leaves new myriads ? 

Such and so grew these holy piles, 

While love and terror laid the tiles. 

5. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 

As the best gem upon her zone ; 

And Morning opes with haste her lids, 

To gaze upon the pyramids ; 

O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky, 

As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 

For out of thought’s interior sphere 
These wonders rose to upper air; 

And Nature gladly gave them place, 
Adopted them into her race, 

And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat. 

6. These temples grew as grows the grass— 
Art might obey, but not surpass. 

The passive master lent his hand 
To the vast Soul that o’er him planned ; 
And the same Power that reared the shrine, 
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 

7. Ever the fiery Pentecost 

Girds with one flame the countless host, 
Trances the heart through chanting choirs, 
And through the priest the mind inspires. 
The word unto the prophet spoken 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 

The word by seers or sibyls told, 

In groves of oak or fanes of gold, 

Still floats upon the morning wind, 

Still whispers to the willing mind. 


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399 


One accent of tlie Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost. 

8. I know wliat say the fathers wise— 

The hook itself before me lies— 

Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 

And he who blent both in his line, 

The younger golden lips or mines— 

Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines ; 

His words are music in my ear— 

I see his cowled portrait dear ; 

And yet, for all his faith could see, 

I would not the good bishop be. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 


For Preparation.—I. Who was Phidias ? (His greatness lies chiefly 
in the fact that he invented and fixed for all later artists the features by 
which the gods of the Greek Olympus are recognized.) “ Delphic oracle ” ? 
Parthenon (adorned by Phidias)? Chrysostom (meaning “golden lips.” 
Jeremy Taylor, who is alluded to below, resembled Chrysostom in his elo¬ 
quence. Coleridge pronounced him “ the most eloquent of divines ”). This 
poem is made on the portrait of Taylor (1613-67), the “cowl6d church¬ 
man ” spoken of, and celebrates the inspiration of the prophet, priest, poet, 
and artist. 

II. Aisle (ii), wr6ught (rawt), fSath'- er§ (feth'-), myr'-i-adg, por'- 
trait, prSph'-et (and prdf'it). 

III. “ Wrought ’’—explain its “ derivation ” from “ work.” 

IV. Problem, cowl, pensive, allure, endure, monastic, litanies, canticles, 
dome, sincerity, piles, sibyls, fanes, groined. 

V. “ Burdens of the Bible ”—in what sense is the word burden used 

here ? (“ burden of a song.”) “ Conscious stone ” (metaphor for a conscious 
purpose which moved the architect who made the plan of the church). 
Have you seen the colors on the inside of a sea-shell ? “ Painted with morn ” 
(colors of the dawn, caused by the succession of narrow seams or furrows 
where the layers of annual growth join). “ Granted them an equal date 
with Andes,” etc. (i. e., accepted them as works of equal merit and author¬ 
ity). What is the allusion in “ Pentecost ” ? “ Tables yet unbroken ” 

(tables of the soul—not to be broken, like the stone ones of Moses). 



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CXXX.—THE GREATNESS OF NAPOLEON. 

1. There are different orders of greatness. Among 
these, the first rank is unquestionably due to moral great¬ 
ness, or magnanimity; to that sublime energy by which 
the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself in¬ 
dissolubly, for life and for death, to truth and duty; es¬ 
pouses as its own the interests of human nature; scorns 
all meanness and defies all peril; hears in its own con¬ 
science a voice louder than threatenings and thunders; 
withstands all the powers of the universe which would 
sever it from the cause of freedom and religion; reposes 
an unfaltering trust in God in the darkest hour; and is 
ever “ ready to be offered up ” on the altar of its country 
or of mankind. 

2. Of this moral greatness, which throws all other 
forms of greatness into obscurity, we see not a trace in 
Napoleon. Though clothed with the power of a god, 
the thought of consecrating himself to the introduction 
of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character 
and condition of his race, seems never to have dawned 
on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self- 
sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment’s war with 
self-will and ambition. 

3. His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly at va¬ 
riance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much 
simplicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent, and 
enters into others’ interests with too much heartiness, to 
live an hour for what Napoleon always lived—to make 
itself the theme, and gaze, and wonder of a dazzled world. 

4. Next to moral comes intellectual greatness, or 
genius in the highest sense of that word; and by this we 


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401 


mean that sublime capacity of thought through which 
the soul, smitten with the love of the true and the beauti¬ 
ful, essays to comprehend the universe, soars into the 
heavens, penetrates the earth, penetrates itself, questions 
the past, anticipates the future, traces out the general and 
all-comprehending laws of Nature, binds together by in¬ 
numerable affinities and relations all the objects of its 
knowledge, rises from the finite and transient to the in¬ 
finite and the everlasting; frames to itself, from its own 
fullness, lovelier and sublimer forms than it beholds; dis¬ 
cerns the harmonies between the world within and the 
world without us, and finds in every region of the uni¬ 
verse types and interpreters of its own deep mysteries and 
glorious inspirations. This is the greatness which belongs 
to philosophers, and to the master-spirits in poetry and 
the fine arts. 

5. Next comes the greatness of action; and by this 
we mean the sublime power of conceiving bold and ex¬ 
tensive plans ; of constructing and bringing to bear on a 
mighty object a complicated machinery of means, ener¬ 
gies, and arrangements, and of accomplishing great out¬ 
ward effects. 

6. To this head belongs the greatness of Bonaparte; 
and that he possessed it we need not prove, and none will 
be hardy enough to deny. A man who raised himself 
from obscurity to a throne ; who changed the face of the 
world; who made himself felt through powerful and civ¬ 
ilized nations; who sent the terror of his name across 
seas and oceans; whose will was pronounced and feared 
as destiny; whose donatives were crowns; whose ante¬ 
chamber was thronged by submissive princes; who broke 
down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a 
highway ; and whose fame was spread beyond the boun- 


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daries of civilization to the steppes of the Cossack and the 
deserts of the Arab—a man who has left this record of 
himself in history has taken out of our hands the question 
whether he shall be called great. All must concede to 
him a sublime power of action—an energy equal to great 
effects. _ W. E. Charming. 


For Preparation. —I. Give a brief account of the life of Napoleon 
Bonaparte;—of his passage of the Alps;—what of his early obscurity? 
Where did he fight the Arabs ? “ Cossack ” alludes to his campaign against 
Moscow. 

IT. In-dis'-so-lu-bly, knowl'-edge (ndl'ej), types, stEppes (st£ps), -con¬ 
cede'. 

III. Correct (and give your reasons for it): “ He sent the terror of his 
name across sea’s and ocean’s ; who’se will was pronounced as destiny.” 

IV. Espouses, obscurity, consecrating, era, unostentatious, universe, an- 
ticipates, affinities, donatives, “ barrier of the Alps,” “ penetrates the earth.” 

V. Discriminate “ greatness of intellect ” from “ greatness of action,” 
and give an example to illustrate the difference. Name the chief traits of 
“ moral greatness.” 


CXXXI.—THE DESERT. 

FIRST VOICE. 

“ Ah me—the scorching sand ! 

The cloudless, burned-out blue ! 

The choking air on every hand, 

That the rain drops never through! ” 

SECOND VOICE. 

“ The oasis was fair, 

The green palm-tree with its dates, 
And the breath of the far-off ocean-air, 
Where the restful harbor waits.” 










The Desert. 


(.Page 402 .) 






































FIFTH READER. 


403 


FIRST VOICE. 

“ All me—the weary way ! 

The burden heavy to bear! 

The short, swift nights that die to day, 

The silence everywhere ! ” 

SECOND VOICE. 

“ The oasis will rise 

Over the sand-swept ring ; 

In music under cool, starry skies 
Will ripple the running spring.” 

FIRST VOICE. 

“ Ah me—the scorching sand ! 

The cloudless, burned-out blue ! 

The choking air on every hand, 

That the rain drops never through! ” 

Anna C. Brackett. 


For Preparation. — I. What deserts in Asia ?—Africa ?—America ? 
What mountains surround each in such a way as to prevent the rain-clouds 
from visiting them ? (The clouds are so chilled when they reach the moun¬ 
tain-ranges, on their way from the sea, that they lose all their moisture; 
consequently the air that passes over to the other side is very dry. The 
soil cannot support vegetation without moisture. The prevailing winds 
blow eastwardly in the temperate zones, and westwardly in the torrid; 
hence the deserts of the temperate zones are caused by mountain-chains to 
the west of them, and the deserts of the torrid zones are caused by moun¬ 
tains on the east. The Sahara desert and the deserts of Arabia and of 
Western Asia get no winds direct from the ocean, but only the winds that 
have lost their moisture in passing the immense stretch of mountainous 
land in Asia. 

II. Chok'-ing, o'-a-sis, run'-ning, star'-ry. 

III. Change the first stanza into the order of prose. 

IV. “ Swift nights that die to day ” (into day). 



404 


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V. The song of two travelers in a caravan. “ The burden heavy to 
bear ”—what goods do people carry across deserts ? “ Burned-out blue ” 

(after a rain, when the air is clear of smoke and vapors, the air looks 
bluest). Note the repetition of the first verse, and its poetic effect. 


CXXXII.—CANDLES NOT USED BY THE ANCIENTS. 

1. With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not 
that the earliest lark rises so early in Latium as the earli¬ 
est lark in England—that is, during summer; hut then, 
on the other hand, neither does it even rise so late. The 
Roman citizen was stirring with the dawn, which, allow¬ 
ing for the shorter longest day and longer shortest day 
of Rome, you may call about four in summer, and about 
seven in winter. 

2. Why did he do this ? Because he went to bed at 
a very early hour. But why did he do that \—By back¬ 
ing in this way we shall surely back into the very well 
of truth. Always, if it is possible, let us have the why 
of the wherefore.—The Roman went to bed early for 
two special reasons : First, because in Rome, which had 
been built for a martial destiny, every habit of life had 
reference to the usages of war. 

3. Every citizen, if he were not a mere animal kept 
at public cost, held himself a sort of soldier-elect. The 
more noble he was, the more was his liability to military 
service. Now, it was a principle of ancient warfare, that 
every hour of daylight had a triple worth if valued 
against hours of darkness. That was one reason—a 
reason suggested by the understanding. 

4. But there was a second reason far more remark¬ 
able, and this was a reason dictated by a blind necessity. 
It is an important fact that this planet on which we 



FIFTH READER. 


405 


live, this little, industrious earth of ours, has developed 
her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from 
being the rich little globe in Caesar’s days that she is at 
present. 

5. The earth, in our days, is incalculably richer, as a 
whole, than in the time of Charlemagne. At that time 
she was richer by many a million of acres than'in the 
era of Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a 
clear belt of cultivation, averaging about six hundred 
miles in depth, running in a ring fence about the Medi¬ 
terranean. This belt, and no more, was in decent culti¬ 
vation. 

6. Beyond that belt there was only a wild Indian 
cultivation. At present, what a difference! Such being 
the case, our mother, the Earth, being, as a whole, so in¬ 
comparably poorer, could not in the pagan era support 
the expense of maintaining great empires in cold lati¬ 
tudes ; her purse would not reach that cost. 

7. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those ages, 
simply because his worthy mother Earth could not afford 
him candles. She, good old lady (or good young lady, 
for geologists know not whether she is in that stage of 
her progress which corresponds to gray hairs, or to in¬ 
fancy, or to a “ certain age ”), would certainly have shud¬ 
dered to hear any of her nations asking for candles. 
“ Candles! ” she would have said; “ who ever heard of 
such a thing ?—and with so much excellent daylight run¬ 
ning to w r aste as I have provided gratis ! What will the 
wretches want next ? ” 

8. The daylight, furnished gratis, was certainly neat, 
and undeniable in its quality, and quite sufficient for all 
purposes that were honest. Seneca, even in his own luxu- 


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rious period, called those men “ lucifugce ” (light-shun- 
ners), and by other ugly names, who lived chiefly by 
candle-light. None but rich and luxurious men—nay, 
even among these, none but idlers—did live much by 
candle-light. 

9. An immense majority of men in Rome never light¬ 
ed a candle, unless sometimes in the early dawn. And 
this custom of Rome was the custom also of all nations 
that lived round the great pond of the Mediterranean. 
In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere, 
the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to 
nine o’clock. The Turks, and other people who have suc¬ 
ceeded to the stations and habits of the ancients, do so 
to this day. 

10. The Roman, therefore, who saw no joke in sit¬ 
ting round the table in the dark, went off to bed as the 
darkness began. Everybody did so. Old Numa Pom- 
pilius himself was obliged to trundle off in the dusk. 
Tarquinius might be a very superb fellow, but we doubt 
whether he ever saw a farthing rushlight; and, though 
it may be thought that plots and conspiracies would 
flourish in such a city of darkness, it is to be considered 
that the conspirators themselves had no more candles 
than honest men : both parties were in the dark. 

Thomas De Quincey. 


For Preparation. —I. “ Latium ” (the old name of that part of Italy 
in which Rome is situated. Date of Augustus Caesar’s death ? (a. d. 14)— 
of Charlemagne’s? (a. d. 814). Who were Seneca (died a. d. 65) and 
Numa Pompilius ? (died b. c. 672).—Tarquinius ? (called “ Superbus ”—not 
“ superb ” in our sense, but because he was haughty). 

II. Ne-c&s'-si-ty, -ean'-dleg (-dlz), suf-fi'-cient (-fish'ent), flour'-ish 
(flur'-), trip'-le (trlp'l). 

III. “About four in the winter ” —what is omitted ? 



FIFTH READER. 


407 


IV. Special, martial, destiny, reference, usages, “ soldier-clcct,” liabil¬ 
ity, dictated, incalculably, descry, averaging, cultivation, “pagan era,” 
maintaining, latitudes, afford, geologists, correspondents, shuddered, gratis, 
furnished, undeniable, luxurious, immense, majority, superb,' conspiracies. 

V. “ By backing in this way ” (2)—(i. e., into the subject). Note De 
Quincey’s use of colloquial expressions, and the familiarity in which he in¬ 
dulges toward his reader. State, in your own language, the first reason for 
the early rising of the Romans;—the second reason. “A certain age” 
(7)—what use is commonly made of this expression ? “ Farthing rushlight ” 
(dried rushes were used as wicks). 


CXXXIII.—RIENZI’S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. 

1. I come not here to talk. You know too well 
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves ! 

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves ! he sets, and his last beam 
Falls on a slave !—not such as, swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 
To crimson glory and undying fame, 

But base, ignoble slaves—slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants ; feudal despots ; lords, 

Bich in some dozen paltry villages ; 

Strong in some hundred spearmen ; only great 
In that strange spell—a name. 

2. Each hour dark fraud, 
Or open rapine, or protected murder, 

Cry out against them. But this very day, 

An honest man, my neighbor (there he stands), 

Was struck—struck like a dog, by one who wore 
The badge of Ursini, because, forsooth, 

He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 

Hor lifted up his voice in servile shouts 
At sight of that great ruffian ! Be we men, 



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And suffer sucli dishonor % —men, and wash not 
The stain away in blood ? 

3. Such shames are common. 
I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to ye, 

I had a brother once (a gracious boy), 

Full of gentleness, of calmest hope, 

Of sweet and quiet joy : there was the look 
Of heaven upon his face, which limners give 
To the beloved disciple. How I loved 
That gracious boy ! Younger by fifteen years, 
Brother at once and son ! He left my side, 

A summer bloom on his fair cheek, a smile 
Parting his innocent lips : in one short hour, 

The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw 
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 
For vengeance! 

4. Bouse ye, Bomans! rouse ye, slaves! 
Have ye brave sons ? Look, in the next fierce 

brawl, 

To see them die. Have ye fair daughters ? Look 
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 
Dishonored ; and, if ye dare call for justice, 

Be answered by the lash. 


5. Yet this is Borne, 

That sat on her seven hills, and, from her throne 
Of beauty, ruled the world ! Yet we are Bomans ! 
Why, in that elder day, to be a Boman, 

Was greater than a king! And, once again, 

(Hear me, ye wallfe, that echoed to the tread 
Of either Brutus!) once again, I swear 
The eternal city shall be free ! 


Mary Russell Milford. 


FIFTH HEADER. 


409 


For Preparation. —I. From the drama “ Rienzi.” Rienzi, in 1347, 
effected a sudden reformation in Rome, securing the people against the 
tyranny and rapacity of the feudal barons, who occupied fortified castles. 
He was, however, more eloquent than judicious, and was driven out in the 
same year ; and finally, on his return in 1354, as senator sent by the Pope, 
he was killed in an insurrection fomented by the nobles. 

II. -GSn'-quer-or (konk'er-ur), feud'-al (fud'-), neigh'-bor (na'bur), riif'- 
fian (ruf'yan). 

III. “ Crimson glory ”—why crimson ? “ Ignoble ” (iff is in, meaning 

not). “ Be we men ”—why not u Are we men ” ? Meaning of est in calmest ? 

IV. Thraldom, ignoble, horde, petty, despots, paltry, spell, fraud, 
rapine, servile, limners, mangles, vengeance, badge. 

V. “ The badge of Ursini.” (The Orsini were among the most famous 
of Italian noble families—with the Colonnas, Savellis, and others. This 
family resisted Rienzi.) “Struck—struck like a dog”—what effect does 
it have to repeat the work struck ? 


CXXXIV.—LIBERTY, OR DEATH! 

1. Mr. President : It is natural to man to indulge in 
the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against 
a painful truth, and listen to the song of that syren, till 
she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise 
men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for lib¬ 
erty ? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, 
having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things 
which so nearly concern their temporal salvation ? 

2. For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may 
cost, I am willing to know the whole truth—to know 
the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by 
which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experi¬ 
ence. I know of no way of judging of the future but by 
the past; and, judging by the past, I wish to know what 
there has been in the conduct of the British ministrv for 
the last ten years to justify those hopes with which 

18 



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gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and 
the House. 

3. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition 
has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir; it will prove 
a snare to your feet! Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed 
with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception 
of our petition comports with those warlike preparations 
which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets 
and armies necessary to a work of love and reconcilia¬ 
tion ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be rec¬ 
onciled that force must be called in to win back our love ? 

4. Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the 
implements of war and subjugation—the last arguments 
to which kings resort. I ask, sir, What means this mar¬ 
tial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission ? 
Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it ? 
Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, 
to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? 

5. Ho, sir, she has none; they are meant for us: 
they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to 
bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British 
ministry have been so long forging. And what have we 
to oppose to them ? 

6. Shall we try argument ? Sir, we have been trying 
that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to 
offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the 
subject up in every light of which it is capable, but it has 
been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble 
supplication ? What terms shall we find which have not 
been already exhausted ? 

7. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves 
longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done 
to avert the storm that is now coming on. We have 


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411 


petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; 
we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have 
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands 
of the ministry and Parliament. 

8. Our petitions have been slighted; our remon¬ 
strances have produced additional violence and insult; 
our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have 
been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne! 
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope 
of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room 
for hope. 

9. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve in¬ 
violate those inestimable privileges for which we have 
been so long contending; if we mean not basely to aban¬ 
don the noble struggle in which we have been so long 
engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to 
abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be 
obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir: We must fight! 
An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is 
left us! 

10. They tell us, sir, that we are weak—unable to 
cope with so formidable an adversary; but when shall 
we be stronger ? Will it be the next week, or the next 
year ? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when 
a British guard shall be stationed in every house ? Shall 
we gather strength by irresolution and inaction ? Shall 
we acquire, the means of effectual resistance by lying 
supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom 
of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and 
foot ? 

11. Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of 
those means which the God of Nature hath placed in our 


412 


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power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause 
of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, 
are invincible by any force which our enemy can send 
against us. 

12. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone: 
there is a just God who presides over the destinies of 
nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles 
for us. The battle is not to the strong alone: it is to 
the vigilant, the active, the brave. 

13. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base 
enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the 
contest. There is no retreat, but in submission or slav¬ 
ery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be 
heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, 
and let it come! I repeat it, sir: Let it come! 

14. It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentle¬ 
men may cry “Peace! peace!” but there is no peace. 
The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps 
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of re¬ 
sounding arms! Oar brethren are already in the field ! 
Why stand we here idle ? 

15. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would 
they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be 
purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, 
Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, 
but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! 

Patrick Henry. 


For Preparation. —I. From the speech delivered in March, 1775, in the 
second Virginia Convention, in behalf of the resolution “ that the colony be 
immediately put in a state of defense.” 

II. SSl'-a^e, a€-eu-mu-la'-tion, r&e-orusil-i-a'-tion, in-vin'-^i-blo. 



FIFTH READER. 


413 


III. Be used in predication has many forms to express its distinctions of 
time, number, and person: am, art, is, are, was, wast, were, wert, been, 
be, and being—eleven in all; tell how each word is used, and what it predi¬ 
cates (e. g., am predicates of /, or the person speaking, in the present 
time; art predicates of thou, in present time, etc.). 

IV. Illusions, syren, prostrated, supplicated, inviolate, effectual, supine¬ 
ly, extenuate, arduous. 

V. “ Having eyes, see not,” etc. (quotation from Scripture: Jeremiah v. 
21 and Ezekiel xii. 2). “ British ministry ” (in England the ministers of the 
king are always held responsible for the measures of the king) corresponds 
to the American “ Cabinet.” “ And who will raise up friends to fight our 
battles for us ”—did this prophecy prove true ? What friends helped ? 
“ Our brethren are already in the field ” (refers to a Committee of Safety 
appointed by the Massachusetts Assembly, February 9, 1775, to muster 
the “ minute-men ” and militia). 


CXXXV.—THE SKY-LARK. 

1. Hail to thee, blithe spirit— 

Bird thou never wert— 

That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art! 

2. Higher still, and higher, 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire: 

The blue deep thou wingest, 

And, singing still, dost soar, and soaring, ever singest. 

3. In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 

O’er which clouds are brightening, 

Thou dost float and run, 

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 




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4. The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight; 

Like a star of heaven 
In the broad daylight, 

Thou art unseen, hut yet I hear thy shrill delight. 

5. All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 

As, when night is bare, 

From one lonely cloud 

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 

6. What thou art, we know not; 

What is most like thee ? 

From rainbow-clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see, 

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

7. Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 

Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not; 

8. Chorus hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chant, 

Matched with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt— 

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

9. What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain \ 

What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 

What shapes of sky or plain ? 

What love of thine own kind ? What ignorance of pain ? 


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10. We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not; 

Onr sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught; 

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

11. Yet if we could scorn 

Hate and pride and fear ; 

If we were things born 
Hot to shed a tear, 

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

12. Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound; 

Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 

13. Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know; 

Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 

The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

Pei'cy Bysshe Shelley . 

For Preparation. —I. Stanzas 5,9, 10,11,12,13,16, and 17, of the orig¬ 
inal poem are omitted in this piece. What nation’s poets have the most to 
say of the sky-lark ?—of the nightingale ? Das America any song-bird that 
is a favorite with the poets ? 

II. Blithe, un-pre-mSd'-i-tat-ed, in81'-o-dy, wr6ught (rawt), fraught 
(frawt), tri-umph'-al. 

III. “Purple even” (4)—even is a contraction for what? Mark the 
feet and accented syllables of each line in this piece, and note the marvelous 
descriptive effect of its rhythm in expressing the shades of thought and 
feeling (e. g., the change of accent in the last line, which is of double length, 
and adds a different poetic tone to the rest. The feet accented on the first 



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syllable express the bird’s pulsing flight through the air; but the feet ac¬ 
cented on the last syllable express his continued ascent). {See XCVIII.) 

IY. Blithe, profuse, melody, chant, vaunt, harmonious. 

V. “ Wert ” (1) rhymes with “ heart.” (In England, the tendency is to pro¬ 
nounce er just as we pronounce ar: clerk is pronounced like clark ; sergeant 
like sargeant, even with us). “ That from heaven, or near it ”—is the alter¬ 
native, “ or near it,” poetical, or the reverse ? (The hyperbole of “ from 
heaven ” is burlesqued by the addition; it is as though one should say, “ The 
wild waves roll in billows as high as the sky, or within a few feet of it.”) 
“Higher still, and higher” does not continue the first stanza, but describes 
the first ascent of the lark. “ Sunken sun ” is generally used to mean the sun 
that has set; here it may mean the sun not yet risen, and “ o’er which clouds 
are brightening.” “ Float and run ”—is “ run ” a good word to describe 
the flight of a bird ? Note the beautiful simile in the 6th stanza; it suggests 
the simile of Ilomer in the 8th book of the “ Iliad ” (Tennyson’s translation): 

“ As when in heaven the stars about the moon 
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 

And every height comes out, and jutting peak 
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 
Break open to their highest, and all the stars 
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart.” 

Note the contrast of art and like (i. e., of being and seeming) in 6th stanza. 
Stanza 1 is the climax of the similes, and is really an inverted simile, for it 
is rather the rhapsody of the lark that illustrates the poetic inspiration than 
the contrary; ordinarily and properly the hidden and spiritual should be 
illustrated by the visible and material; the light of thought, the inspiration 
of the poet, could be illustrated through the simile that compared it with the 
song of a lark; but Shelley attempts to illustrate the lark-song by compar¬ 
ing it with the inspiration of a poet—i. e., compares what is audible with 
what is inaudible, and not a sensuous fact at all. “ I know not how thy 
joy,” etc. (11)—(i. e., if we had no “ saddest thought” we could not appre¬ 
ciate “ our sweetest songs ”; the lark’s sweetness tells of grief overcome). 


CXXXVI.—FOSSIL POETRY. 

1. Language is fossil poetry; in other words, we are 
not to look for the poetry which a people may possess, 
only in its poems, traditions, and beliefs. Many a single 
word also is a concentrated poem, having stores of poet- 



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417 


ical thought and imagery laid up in it. Examine it, and 
it will he found to rest on some deep analogy of things 
natural and things spiritual, bringing those to illustrate 
and to give an abiding form and body to these. 

2. The image may have grown trite and ordinary 
now—perhaps, through the help of this very word, may 
have become so entirely the heritage of all, as to seem 
little better than a commonplace; yet not the less he 
who first discerned the relation, and devised the new word 
which should express it, or gave to an old word, never 
before but literally used, this new figurative sense, this 
man was, in his degree, a poet—a maker, that is, of things 
which were not before ; which could not have existed but 
for him, or for some other gifted with equal powers. 

3. He who spake first of a “dilapidated” fortune, 
what an image must have risen up before his mind’s eye 
of some falling house or palace—stone detaching itself 
from stone, till all had gradually sunk into desolation and 
ruin! 

4. He who to that Greek word which signified “ that 
which will endure to be held up to and judged by the 
light,” gave first its ethical signification of “sincere,” 
“truthful,” or, as we sometimes say, “transparent”— 
can we deny to him the poet’s feeling and eye ? 

5. Many a man had gazed, we are sure, at the jagged 
and indented mountain ridges of Spain before one called 
them “sierras,” or “saws”—the name by which now they 
are known, as Sierra Morena, Sierra Nevada; but that 
name coined his imagination into a word which will en¬ 
dure as long as the everlasting hills which he named. 

6. “ Iliads without a Homer,” some one has called, 
with a little exaggeration, the beautiful but anonymous 


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ballad-poetry of Spain. One may be permitted, perhaps, 
to push the exaggeration a little further in the same di¬ 
rection, and to apply the phrase not merely to a ballad, 
but to a word. 

7. Let me illustrate that which I have been here say¬ 
ing somewhat more at length by the word “ tribulation.” 
We all know, in a general way, that this word—which 
occurs not seldom in Scripture—means affliction, sorrow, 
anguish; but it is quite worth our while to know how it 
means this, and to question the word a little closer. It 
is derived from the Latin tribulum , which was the thrash¬ 
ing instrument or roller whereby the Roman husband¬ 
man separated the corn from the husks; and tribulatio , 
in its primary signification, was the act of this separation. 

8. But some Latin writer of the Christian Church ap¬ 

propriated the word and image for the setting forth of a 
higher truth ; and sorrow, distress, and adversity being 
the appointed means for the separating in men of their 
chaff from their wheat—of whatever in them was light, 
and trivial, and poor, from the solid and the true—there¬ 
fore he called these sorrows and griefs “ tribulations ”— 
thrashings, that is, of the inner spiritual man, without 
which there could be no fitting him for the heavenly 
garner. _ Richard Chenevix Trench. 

For Preparation.— I. What are “ fossils ” ? (Fossil is from the Latin 
word fodere , to dig, and meant something found by digging. Animal or 
vegetable organisms that have been turned into stone ; or rather, whose tis¬ 
sues have been replaced by stone, leaving their shapes perfectly preserved. 
Impressions of such organisms made in a substance originally soft and after¬ 
ward hardened and thus preserved, are also called fossils. 

II. Be-liefs', il-lfts'-trate, d8s-o-la'-tion, trans-par'-ent, e^-ag- 
ger-a'-tion, sig-ni-fi-ea'-tion, a-nSn'-y-mous, s8p'-a-rat-ed. 

HI. Dilapidated (di = asunder, lapid = stones, ate = make, ed = past 
time—stones made (to fall) asunder). 



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IV. Ethical, anonymous, garner, chaff, trite, devised, trivial. 

V. “ He who first discerned the relation ” (i. e., saw the correspondence 
of things natural and things spiritual). “ Never before but literally used ” 
(“ before ” applied only to natural things). “ To that Greek word ” (4) 
(the Greek word for true is alethes , from a = not, and letho, to conceal). 


CXXXVII.—L’ALLEGRO. 

I.—MORNING GLADNESS IN THE COUNTRY. 

1. Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest, and youthful jollity, 

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
Hods, and hecks, and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, 

And love to live in dimple sleek— 

Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 

And Laughter holding both his sides. 

2. Come, and trip it, as ye go 
On the light fantastic toe ; 

And in thy right hand lead with thee 
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty: 
And if I give thee honor due, 

Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 

To live with her, and live with thee, 

In unreproved pleasures free ; 

3. To hear the lark begin liis flight, 

And, singing, startle the dull Night 
From his watch-tower in the skies, 

Till the dappled dawn doth rise; 

Then to come in spite of sorrow, 

And at my window bid good-morrow 
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine, 

Or the twisted eglantine ; 



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While the cock with lively din 
Scatters the rear of darkness thin, 

And to the stack, or the barn-door, 

Stoutly struts his dames before ; 

4. Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 

From the side of some hoar hill, 

Through the high wood echoing shrill; 
Sometime walking, not unseen, 

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, 
Bight against the eastern gate, 

Where the great Sun begins his state, 
Kobed in flames and amber light, 

The clouds in thousand liveries dight, 
While the ploughman near at hand 
Whistles o’er the furrowed land, 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 

And the mower whets his scythe, 

And every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

II.-EVENING GLADNESS IN THE CITY. 

5. Towered cities please us then, 

And the busy hum of men, 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold 
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, 
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
Bain influence, and judge the prize 
Of wit or arms, while both contend 
To win her grace whom all commend. 

6. There let Hymen oft appear 

In saffron robe, with taper clear, 


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421 


And pomp and feast and revelry, 

With mask and antique pageantry— 

Such sights as youthful poets dream 
On summer eves by haunted stream. 

Then to the well-trod stage anon, 

If Jonson’s learned sock be on, 

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, 

Warble his native wood-notes wild. 

7. And ever, against eating cares, 

Lap me in soft Lydian airs, 

Married to immortal verse, 

Such as the meeting soul may pierce 
In notes, with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, 

The melting voice through mazes running, 
Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony ; 

8. That Orpheus’ self may heave his head 
From golden slumber on a bed 

Of heap’d Elysian flowers, and hear 
Such strains as would have won the ear 
Of Pluto, to have quite set free 
His half-regained Eurydice. 

These delights if thou canst give, 

Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 

John Milton. 

For Preparation. — I. What have you read of Milton ? Rank of Milton 
as a poet ? (next after Shakespeare, who is the greatest, or perhaps after 
Chaucer, who is placed by some, with good reason, next to Shakespeare. 
After Milton, comes Spenser next. What have you read of these other 
great writers ?) “ L’Allegro ” (means the merry , hence “ Mirth ”). A long 

passage is omitted at the close of the first part, and a few lines also at the 
beginning. 



422 


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II. Laugh'-ter (laf'-), nymph (nlmf), hon'-or (dn'ur), Sg'-lan-tine, 
plough'-man (plou'-), whis'-tle§ (hwis'siz), blithe, scythe (sith), knights 
(nits), trl'-umphs, an-tique', pag'-eant-ry (paj'ant-ry), linked (llnkt), 
linked. 

III. Mark the metre of the first five lines. Make a list of ten words in 
which ing implies present time. “ Her grace whom all commend ” {whom 
refers to her). 

IV. Quips, derides, dappled, hoar, amber, “ liveries dight,” whets, Hy¬ 
men, revelry. 

V. “Weeds of peace.” “ Hebe’s cheek.” “ Soft Lydian airs.” Explain 
the classic allusions in “Orpheus,” “Elysian,” “Pluto,” “half-regained 
Eurydice.” Make a list of objects personified in the poem. What metaphor 
in the words, “ scatters the rear of darkness thin ” ? Who are the “ dames ” 
referred to (3)? “Jonson’s learned sock” (Ben Jonson, noted for his 
learned dramas). What is meant by “ sock ” ? What time of day is de¬ 
scribed in the 3d and 4th stanzas ? Of what country is the scenery ? Quote 
short passages from this poem that you think remarkable for beauty, or for 
felicity of expression. 


CXXXVIII.—A SERMON OF OLD AGE. 

1. There is a period when the apple-tree blossoms 
with its fellows of the wood and field. How fair a time 
it is ! All Nature is woosome and winning; the material 
world celebrates its vegetable loves, and the flower-bells, 
touched by the winds of Spring, usher in the universal 
marriage of Nature. Beast, bird, insect, reptile, fish, 
plant, lichen, with their prophetic colors spread, all float 
forward on the tide of new life. 

2. Then comes the summer. Many a blossom falls 
fruitless to the ground, littering the earth with beauty, 
never to be used. Thick leaves hide the process of 
creation, which first blushed public in the flowers, and 
now unseen goes on. For so life’s most deep and fruit¬ 
ful hours are hid in mystery. Apples are growing on 



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423 


every tree ; all summer long they grow, and in early 
autumn. 

3. At length the fruit is fully formed; the leaves 
begin to fall, letting the sun approach more near. The 
apple hangs there yet — not to grow, only to ripen. 
Weeks long it clings to the tree; it gains nothing in size 
and weight. Externally, there is increase of beauty. 

4. Having finished the form from within, ^Nature 
brings out the added grace of color. It is not a tricksy 
fashion painted on, but an expression which of itself 
comes out—a fragrance and a loveliness of the apple’s 
innermost. Within, at the same time, the component 
elements are changing. 

5. The apple grows mild and pleasant. It softens, 
sweetens—in one word, it mellows. Some night, the 
vital forces of the tree get drowsy, and the autumn, with 
gentle breath, just shakes the bough ; the expectant fruit 
lets go its hold, full-grown, full-ripe, full-colored too, and, 
with plump and happy sound, the apple falls into the au¬ 
tumn’s lap, and the spring’s marriage-promise is complete. 

6. Such is the natural process which each fruit goes 
through, blooming, growing, ripening. The same divine 
law is appropriate for every kind of animal, from the 
lowest reptile up to imperial man. It is very beautiful. 

7. The parts of the process are perfect; the whole is 
complete. Birth is human blossom ; youth, manhood, 
they are our summer growth ; old age is ripeness. The 
hands let go the mortal bough : that is natural death. 

8. I cannot tell where childhood ends and manhood 
begins, nor where manhood ends and old age begins. 
It is a wavering and uncertain line, not straight and 
definite, which borders betwixt the two. But the out- 


424 


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ward characteristics of old age are obvious enough. The 
weight diminishes. 

9. Man is commonly heaviest at forty, woman at 
fifty. After that the body shrinks a little; the height 
shortens as the cartilages become thin and dry. The 
hair whitens and falls away. The frame stoops; the 
bones become smaller, feebler, have less animal and more 
mere earthy matter. The senses decay, slowly and 
handsomely. 

10. The eye is not so sharp, and, while it penetrates 
farther into space, it has less power clearly to define the 
outline of what it sees. The ear is dull; the appetite 
less. Bodily heat is lower; the breath produces less car¬ 
bonic acid than before. The old man consumes less 
food, water, air. The hands grasp less strongly; the feet 
less firmly tread. 

11. The lungs suck the breast of heaven with less 
powerful collapse. The eye and ear take not so strong a 
hold upon the world; 

“ And the big manly voice, 

Turning again to childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound.” 

12. The animal life is making ready to go out. The 
very old man loves the sunshine and the fire, the arm¬ 
chair and the shady nook. A rude wind would jostle the 
full-grown apple from its bough, full-ripe, full-colored 
too. The internal characteristics correspond. General 
activity is less. Salient love of new things and of new 
persons, which bit the young man’s heart, fades away. 
He thinks the old is better. 

13. Divers diseases invade the flesh in old age, which, 
most of them, it seems to me, come from our general 


FIFTH READER. 


425 


ignorance, or tlie violation of Nature’s laws. Childhood 
is unnatural. Half the human race is cradled in the 
arms of Death. The pains we bear in youth are unnat¬ 
ural. So are many of the pains of old age. The old 
lion, buffalo, eagle, elephant, dies as the apjfle falls from 
the tree, with little pain. 

14. So have I seen a pine-tree in the woods, old, dry 
at its root, weak in its limbs, capped with age-resembling 
snow; it stood there, and seemed like to stand ; but a 
little touch of wind drove it headlong, and it fell with 
long-resounding crash. The next morning the woods¬ 
man is astonished that the old tree lies prostrate on the 
ground. This is a natural death, for the old tree and 
the venerable man. 

15. But our cradle and couch are haunted now with 
disease, which I doubt not wisdom, knowledge of Na¬ 
ture’s laws, and the true religion of the flesh, will one 
day enable us to avoid. Now, sickness attends our rising 
up and our lying down. These infirmities I pass by. 

16. The man reaps in his old age as he sowed in his 
youth and manhood. He ripens what he grew. The 
quantity and the quality of his life are the result of all his 
time. If he has been faithful to his better nature, true 
to his conscience and his heart and his soul, in his old 
age he often reaps a most abundant reward in the rich¬ 
est delight of his own quiet consciousness. 

17. Private selfishness is less now than ever before. 
He loves the eternal justice of God, the great Higher 
Law. Once his hot blood tempted him, and he broke 
perhaps that law; now he thinks thereof with grief at 
the wrong he made others suffer: though he clasps his 
hands and thanks God for the lesson he has learned even 
from his sin. 


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18. He heeds now the great attraction whereby all 
things gravitate toward God. He knows there is a swift 
justice for nations and for men, and he says to the 
youth : “ Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth! Let thy 
heart cheer thee ! ” “ But know thou that for all these 

things God will bring thee into account.” “ Hear the 
sum of the whole matter: Love God and keep his com¬ 
mandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” 

Theodore Parker. 


For Preparation. —I. Explain “ the cartilage becomes thin and dry ”; 
—“ less animal and more earthy matter ; ”—“ carbonic acid ” (as produced 
by the breath);—“ big, manly voice,” etc. (From Shakespeare’s “As You 
Like It.”) “ Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth ”—whence this quotation ? 
(Ecclesiastes xi. 9, not literally quoted here.) 

II. Pe'-ri-od, torched (tucht), rSp'-tile (-ta>, mar'-riage (-rij), li'- 
•elien, au'-tumn (-tum), weight (wat), in-erease', bough (bou), -com¬ 
plete', dgf'-i-nite, jds'-tle (jos'i), sa'-li-ent, di§-ea§-e§, -edn'-scious-ness 

(-shus'-). 

III. Make a list of the words in this piece in which more than one (plu¬ 
ral number) is expressed by a change in the spelling of the word, and 
write the corresponding words that express but one. 

IY. Usher, woosome, imperial, characteristics, cartilages, penetrates, 
“ carbonic acid,” collapse, miracle, infirmities, gravitate. 

Y. Make a list of the characteristics of spring as described here;—of 
autumn ;—of the characteristics of youth and of old age corresponding to 
spring and autumn. 


CXXXIX.—IL PENSEROSO. 

I.-SOBER NIGHT-SCENES IN TIIE COUNTRY. 

1. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 
Sober, steadfast, and demure, 

All in a robe of darkest grain, 

Flowing with majestic train, 




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427 


And sable stole of Cyprus lawn, 

Over thy decent shoulders drawn! 

Come, but keep thy wonted state, 

With even step and musing gait, 

And looks commercing with the skies, 

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes ; 

2. There, held in holy passion still, 

Forget thyself to marble, till 
With a sad, leaden, downward cast, 

Thou fix them on the earth as fast; 

And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, 
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, 
And hears the Muses in a ring 
Aye round about Jove’s altar sing; 

And add to these retired Leisure, 

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure ; 

3. But, first and chiefest, with thee bring 
Him that yon soars on golden wing, 
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, 

The cherub Contemplation ; 

And the mute Silence hist along, 

’Less Philomel will deign a song 
In her sweetest, saddest plight, 

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, 
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke 
Gently o’er the accustomed oak. 

4. Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy ! 

Thee, chantress, oft the woods among 
I woo, to hear thy even-song; 

And, missing thee, I walk unseen 
On the dry, smooth-shaven green, 


FIFTH READER. 


To behold the wandering moon 
Eiding near her highest noon, 

Like one that had been led astray 
Through the heavens’ wide, pathless way, 
And oft, as if her head she bowed, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 

5. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, 

I hear the far-off curfew sound 
Over some wide-watered shore, 

Swinging slow with sullen roar ; 

Or, if the air will not permit, 

Some still removed place will fit, 

Where glowing embers through the room 
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom ; 

Ear from all resort of mirth, 

Save the cricket on the hearth, 

Or the bellman’s drowsy charm, 

To bless the doors from nightly harm ; 

6. Or let my lamp at midnight hour 
Be seen in some high, lonely tower, 
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear 
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere 
The spirit of Plato, to unfold 

What worlds, or what vast regions, hold 
The immortal mind that hath forsook 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook; 

And of those demons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 

Whose power hath a true consent 
With planet or with element. 

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy 
In sceptred pall come sweeping by, 


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429 


Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line, 

Or the tale of Troy divine, 

Or what (though rare) of later age 
Ennobled hath the buskined stage. 

J 

II.-SOBER DAY-SCENES IN FOREST, CLOISTER, AND HER¬ 

MITAGE. 

7. Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, 

Till civil-suited morn appear, 

Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont 
With the Attic boy to hunt, 

But kerchiefed in a comely cloud, 

While rocking winds are piping loud, 

Or ushered with a shower still, 

When the gust hath blown his till, 

Ending on the rustling leaves, 

With minute drops from off the eaves. 

8. And when the sun begins to fling 
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring 
To arched walks of twilight groves, 

And shadows brown that Sylvan loves, 

Of pine, or monumental oak, 

Where the rude ax with heaved stroke 
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, 

Or fright them from their hallow T ed haunt. 

9. There in close covert by some brook, 

Where no profaner eye may look, 

Hide me from Day’s garish eye, 

While the bee with honeyed thigh, 

That at her flowery work doth sing, 

And the waters murmuring, 

With such consort as they keep, 

Entice the dewy-feathered sleep; 


430 


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10. And let some strange, mysterious dream 
Wave at his wings, in airy stream 

Of lively portraiture displayed, 

Softly on my eyelids laid ; 

And as I wake, sweet music breathe 
Above, about, or underneath, 

Sent by some spirit to mortals good, 

Or the unseen genius of the wood. 

11. But let my due feet never fail 

To walk the studious cloisters pale, 

And love the high embowed roof, 

With antic pillars massy proof, 

And storied windows, richly dight, 

Casting a dim religious light. 

There let the pealing organ blow 
To the full-voiced choir below, 

In service high, and anthems clear, 

As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
Dissolve me into ecstacies, 

And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 

12. And may, at last, my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage, 

The hairy gown and mossy cell, 

Where I may sit and rightly spell 
Of every star that heaven doth shew, 

And every herb that sips the dew, 

Till old experience do attain 

To something like prophetic strain. 

These pleasures, Melancholy, give, 

And I with thee will choose to live. 

John Milton. 


For Preparation. —1. Omission of thirty lines from the beginning and 
of eighteen from the middle of this poem. “ II Penseroso ” (the pensive 



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431 


or thoughtful, hence “ Melancholy ”). “ Cynthia ” (the moon—drives a yoke 
of dragons attached to her chariot). 

II. Deign (dan), Mel'-an--eh51-y, wan'-der-ing, plat, ri§'-ing, -eoun'- 
ter-feit (-fit), hearth (harth), dro\v'-§y, gor'-geous, riis'-tling (rus'simg), 
daunt, mys-te'-ri-oiis, pOr'-trait-ure, gen'-ius, -ehoir (kwir), g-e'-sta-sieg. 

III. “ ’Less Philomel,” etc. (3)— un omitted for ’ ? “Do attain”—why 
not doth attain ? 

IV. Pensive, devout, demure, sable, stole, “ wonted state,” “ commerc¬ 
ing with the skies,” rapt, Philomel, Cynthia, sullen, “ outwatch the Bear,” 
Hermes, Plato, element, Tragedy, “ Thebes, or Pelop’s line,” “ Jove’s altar,” 
“fall of Troy,” buskined, ushered, Sylvan (-us), garish, cloisters, antic 
(-ique), pillows, dight, hermitage. 

V. “ Decent shoulders ” (decent = becoming, the old Latin meaning). 
“ Forget thyself to marble ” (until there is no more trace of emotion than 
in a marble statue). “ Spare Fast ” (which lets the mind soar into the 
heavens). “Hist along” (bring by commands of hush). “ Chantress ” 
(the nightingale). “Thrice great Hermes” (“Hermes Trismegistus,” the 
famous alchemic work, studied for its deeply-concealed wisdom). “ That 
hath forsook her mansion” (referring to Plato’s doctrine of the descent 
of the soul as presented in the Phaedo). “ Rightly spell ”—what meaning 
has spell ? 


CXL.—GARDEN-PLANTS. 

1. Lettuce has always been loyal. Herodotus tells us 
that it was served at royal tables some centuries before 
the Christian era, and one of the Homan families en¬ 
nobled its name with that of Lactucinii. So spinach, 
asparagus, and celery, have been held in high repute 
among the eastern nations, as with us; and the parable 
of the mustard-seed shows that plant was known in 
Christ’s time. 

2. The Greeks are said to have esteemed radishes so 
highly, that, in offering oblations to Apollo, they pre¬ 
sented them in beaten gold. And the Emperor Tiberius 
held parsnips in such high repute that he had them 



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brought annually from the Rhine for his table. The 
beet is still prized, but the carrot has lost the reputation 
it had in Queen Elizabeth’s time, the leaves being used 
in the head-dresses of the ladies of her court—whence 
the epithet applied to the hair is derived. 

3. Peas had scarcely made their appearance at the 
tables of the court of Elizabeth, “being very rare,” Fuller 
says, “in the early part of her reign, and seldom seen 
except they were brought from Holland ; and these were 
dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear.” 
Eor did the currant appear much earlier in European 
gardens, coming first under the name of the Corinthian 
grape. Evelyn calls the berries Corinths. So the dam¬ 
son took its name from Damascus; the cherry from 
Cerasus, a city of Pontus; and the peach from Persia. 
The quince, first known as the Cydonian apple, was ded¬ 
icated to the goddess of Love; and pears, like apples, 
are from Paradise. 

4. The apple is the representative fruit, and owes 
most to culture in its ancient varieties of quince, pear, 
pomegranate, citron, peach, as it comprehended all origi¬ 
nally. Of these, pears and peaches have partaken more 
largely of man’s essence, and may be called creations of 
his, being civilized in the measure he is himself ; as are 
the apple and the grape. These last are more generally 
diffused over the earth, and their history embraces that 
of the origin and progress of mankind, the apple being 
coeval with man—Eve’s apple preserving the traditions 
of his earliest experiences; and the grape appears in con¬ 
nection with him not long after his story comes into clear¬ 
ness from the dimness of the past. 

5. Fruits have the honor of being most widely dif¬ 
fused geographically, grown with the kindliest care, and 


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433 


of being first used by man as food. They still enter 
largely into the regimen of the cultivated nations, and 
are the fairest of civilizers ; like Orpheus, they tame the 
human passions to consonance and harmony by their lyric 
influence. The use of them is of such universal impor¬ 
tance that we cannot subsist in any plenty or elegance 
without them. And everywhere beside the cultivated 
man grows the orchard, to intimate his refinement in 
those excellences most befitting his race. 

6. The Homans designated the union of all the virtues 
in the word we render fruit; and bread comes from Pan, 
the representative of Nature, whose stores we gather 
for our common sustenance in our pantries. Biography 
shows that fruit has been the preferred food of the most 
illuminated persons of past times, and of many of the 
ablest. It is friendly to the human constitution, and has 
been made classic by the pens of poets who have cele¬ 
brated its beauty and excellence. 

A. B. Alcott. 


For Preparation. — I. Who was Herodotus ?—Apollo ?—Tiberius ?— 
Queen Elizabeth ?—Fuller ?—Evelyn ’—Orpheus (the mythical civilizer of 
Greece) ?—Pan ? Where is Corinth ?—Damascus ?—Pontus ?—Persia ? (The 
historical and etymological information of this piece possesses a literary in¬ 
terest rather than scientific value.) 

II. L6t'-tuge (tis), reign (ran), -eur'-rant, 6r'-chard, es-teemed', as- 
p&r'-a-gus, sSl'-er-y, spm'-ach (spln'ej), Eu-ro-pe'-an, pome-gran'-ate 
(pum-gran'et), 61'-e-gan§e, 8x'-Qel-lenQe. 

III. Explain the ies in berries ;— iest in kindliest. Compare in meaning, 
sw&sist, consist, desist, resist, insist, assist. (Sist, from Latin sisto, to stand: 
subsist , to stand under ; consist, to stand together , etc.) 

IV. Era, loyal, repute, parable, oblations, reputation, dainties, dedicated, 
diffused, regimen, “ lyric influence,” subsist, pantries, coeval, “ illuminated ” 
(i. e., possessing genius and insight). 

V. What “epithet applied to the hair” is referred to? “Pears and 
peaches having partaken more largely of man’s essence,” etc. (4), (i. e., 

19 



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having had more cultivation; mind being man’s essence, whatever man ex¬ 
pends thought upon, and thus modifies, may be said figuratively to partake 
of his essence). “ Bread, from Pan ” (i. e., the Latin word panis , meaning 
bread—from which “ pantry ” is derived—is conjectured here to come from 
Pan, the shepherd-god—“Pan,” in Greek, meaning all; its real derivation 
is possibly from the root of Pasco , to eat. The English word bread is doubt¬ 
less from braedariy Anglo-Saxon for roast or bake, and means baked). Note 
the style of this piece: its quiet self-possession and dignity reminding one 
of the early English prose. Compare this piece with one of Thoreau’s (e. g., 
LXXX.). Note the length of the sentences, and the easy transition from 
clause to clause; the smoothness and rhythm, and the use of the connec¬ 
tives that relate one passage to the other. 


CXLI.—THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

I.-THE ALBATROSS. 

1. It is an ancient mariner, 

And he stoppeth one of three : 

“ By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 
How wherefore stopp’st thon me ? 

2. “ The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, 

And I am next of kin ; 

The guests are met, the feast is set— 

Mayst hear the merry din.” 

3. He holds him with his skinny hand: 

“ There was a ship,” quoth he. 

“ Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon ! ” 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 

4. He holds him with his glittering eye—• 

The wedding-guest stood still, 

And listens like a three-years’ child: 

The mariner hath his will. 




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435 


5. The wedding-guest sat on a stone : 

He cannot choose but hear; 

And thus spake on that ancient man, 

The bright-eyed mariner: 

6. “ The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, 

Merrily did we drop 
Below the kirk, below the hill, 

Below the lighthouse top. 

7. “ The sun came up upon the left, 

Out of the sea came he! 

And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea. 

8. “ Higher and higher every day, 

Till over the mast at noon—” 

The wedding-guest here beat his breast, 
For he heard the loud bassoon. 

9. The bride hath paced into the hall— 

Bed as a rose is she; 

Nodding their heads, before her goes 
The merry minstrelsy. 

10. The wedding-guest he beat his breast, 

Yet he cannot choose but hear; 

And thus spake on that ancient man, 

The bright-eyed mariner: 

11. “ And now the storm-blast came, and he 

Was tyrannous and strong: 

He struck us with o’ertaking wings, 

And chased us south along. 


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12. “ With sloping masts and dipping prow, 

As who pursued with yell and blow 
Still treads the shadow of his foe, 

And forward bends his head, 

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 

And southward aye we fled. 

13. “ And now there came both mist and snow, 

And it grew wondrous cold: 

And ice, mast-high, came floating by, 

As green as emerald. 

14. “ And through the drifts the snowy clifts 

Did send a dismal sheen: 

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken— 

The ice was all between. 

15. “ The ice was here, the ice was there, 

The ice was all around: 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
Like noises in a swound ! 

16. “ At length did cross an albatross; 

Thorough the fog it came; 

As if it had been a Christian soul, 

We hailed it in God’s name. 

17. “It ate the food it ne’er had eat, 

And round and round it flew. 

The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 

The helmsman steered us through. 

18. “ And a good south-wind sprung up behind; 

The albatross did follow, 

And every day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariner’s hollo! 


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437 


19. “ In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine ; 

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
Glimmered the white moonshine.” 

20. “ God save thee, ancient mariner, 

From the fiends that plague thee thus! 

Why look’st thou so ?”—“With my cross-bow 
I shot the albatross.” 

n. —THE CALM AT SEA. 

21. “ The sun now rose upon the right: 

Out of the sea came he, 

Still hid in mist, and on the left 
Went down into the sea. 

22. “ And the good south-wind still blew behind, 

But no sweet bird did follow, 

Nor any day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariner’s hollo! 

23. “ And I had done a hellish thing, 

And it would work them woe: 

For all averred, I had killed the bird 
That made the breeze to blow. 

‘ Ah, wretch! ’ said they, 4 the bird to slay, 
That made the breeze to blow ! ’ 

24. “Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head 

The glorious sun uprist; 

Then all averred, I had killed the bird 
That brought the fog and mist. 

°Twas right,’ said they, ‘such birds to slay, 
That bring the fog and mist.’ 


438 FIFTH READER. 

25. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 

The furrow followed free; 

We were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea. 

26. “ Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down— 

’Twas sad as sad could be; 

And we did speak only to break 
The silence of the sea! 

27. “ All in a hot and copper sky, 

The bloody sun, at noon, 

Eight up above the mast did stand, 

No bigger than the moon. 

28. “ Day after day, day after day, 

We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 

As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

29. “ Water, water everywhere, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water everywhere, 

Nor any drop to drink. 

30. “ The very deep did rot. O Christ! 

That ever this should be! 

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 

31. “ About, about, in reel and rout, 

The death-fires danced at night; 

The water, like a witch’s oils, 

Burnt green, and blue, and white. 


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439 


32. “ And some in dreams assured were 

Of the spirit that plagued us so; 

Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
From the land of mist and snow. 

33. “ And every tongue, through utter drought, 

Was withered at the root; 

We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot. 

34. “ Ah, well-a-day! What evil looks 

Had I from old and young! 

Instead of the cross, the albatross 
About my neck was hung.” 

m.-THE PROSPEROUS GALE AND THE RETURN. 

35. u O sleep! it is a gentle thing, 

Beloved from pole to pole ! 

To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 

She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, 

That slid into my soul. 

36. “ The silly buckets on the deck, 

That had so long remained, 

I dreamt that they were filled with dew, 
And when I woke, it rained. 

37. “ My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 

My garments all were dank; 

Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 

And still my body drank. 

38. “ I moved, and could not feel my limbs: 

I was so light—almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep, 

And was a blessed ghost. 


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39. “And soon I heard a roaring wind ; 

It did not come anear, 

But with its sound it shook the sails, 

That were so thin and sear. 

40. “ The upper air burst into life! 

And a hundred fire-flags sheen, 

To and fro they were hurried about! 

And to and fro, and in and out, 

The wan stars danced between. 

41. “ And the coming wind did roar more loud, 

And the sails did sigh like sedge, 

And the rain poured down from one black cloud— 
The moon was at its edge. 

42. “ The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 

The moon was at its side: 

Like waters shot from some high crag, 

The lightning fell with never a jag, 

A river steep and wide. 

43. “ The helmsman steered, the ship moved on, 

Yet never a breeze upblew; 

The mariners all ’gan work the ropes, 

Where they were wont to do. 

44. “ Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 

I heard the sky-lark sing; 

Sometimes all little birds that are, 

How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
With their sweet jargoning! 

45. “And now ’twas like all instruments, 

How like a lonely flute, 


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441 


And now it is an angel’s song, 

That makes the heavens he mute. 

46. “ It ceased; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon, 

A noise like of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 

That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet tune. 

47. “ Till noon we quietly sailed on, 

Yet never a breeze did breathe: 

Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
Moved onward from beneath. 

48. “ Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 

Yet she sailed softly too : 

Sweetly, sw r eetly blew the breeze— 

On me alone it blew. 

49. “ Oh, dream of joy! is this, indeed, 

The lighthouse top I see ? 

Is this the hill ? Is this the kirk ? 

Is this mine own countree ? 

50. “¥e drifted o’er the harbor-bar, 

And I with sobs did pray, 

‘ Oh, let me be awake, my God ! 

Or let me sleep alway.’ ” 

IV.-THE SHRIFT OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

51. “ And now, all in my own countree, 

I stood on the firm land! 

The hermit stepped forth from the boat, 
And scarcely he could stand. 


442 


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52. “ ‘ O shrive me, shrive me, holy man ! ’ 

The hermit crossed his brow. 

£ Say quick,’ quoth he, ‘ I hid thee say, 

What manner of man art thou ? 9 

53. “ Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 

With a woful agony, 

Which forced me to begin my tale, 

And then it left me free. 

54. “ Since then, at an uncertain hour, 

That agony returns; 

And till my ghastly tale is told, 

This heart within me burns. 

55. “ I pass, like night, from land to land; 

I have strange power of speech; 

That moment that his face I see, 

I know the man that must hear me: 

To him my tale I teach. 

56. “ What loud uproar bursts from that door 1 

The wedding-guests are there: 

But in the garden-bower the bride 
And bridemaids singing are: 

And hark ! the little vesper-bell 
Which biddeth me to prayer. 

57. “ O wedding-guest! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide, wide sea: 

So lonely ’twas, that God himself 
Scarce seemed there to be. 

58. u Oh, sweeter than the marriage-feast, 

’Tis sweeter far to me, 


FIFTH READER. 


443 


To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company— 

59. “ To walk together to the kirk, 

And all together pray, 

While each to his great Father bends, 

Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 

And youths and maidens gay! 

60. “ Farewell! farewell! but this I tell 

To thee, thou wedding-guest: 

He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

61. “ He prayeth best, who loveth best 

All things both great and small; 

For the dear God who loveth us, 

He made and loveth all.” 

62. The mariner, whose eye is bright, 

Whose beard with age is hoar, 

Is gone: and now the wedding-guest 
Turned from the bridegroom’s door. 

63. He went like one that hath been stunned, 

And is of sense forlorn; 

A sadder and a wiser man 
He rose the morrow morn. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

For Preparation.— I. What is an albatross? What superstition re¬ 
garding it among sailors ? {See 23.) Does the sun ordinarily appear “ big¬ 
ger than the moon ” to us ? (27.) Of this remarkable poem less than one- 
half is given here, omission being made of most of the middle part, viz.: 
thirty-two stanzas that follow No. 34 here given; two stanzas that follow 
No. 42; four stanzas that follow No. 43; twenty stanzas that follow No. 
47; twenty-two stanzas that follow No. 50 ; in all, eighty stanzas are omitted 



444 


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and only sixty-three are given. Those omitted relate the dreadful death of 
the crew by starvation, and their ghostly performances afterward; finally, 
the sinking of the phantom ship with its phantom crew when in sight of 
the home port. 

II. An'-cient (-shent), guSst (gest), tyr'-an-nous, shrink, ghast'-ly, 
soot, aye (a). 

III. Note the imitation of old English style in this poem; it appears 
in words, phrases, and rhymes; some of the “ archaisms,” as they are called, 
are eftsoons (eft, after—soon after), swound (swoon), clift (cliff), thorough 
(16) (through), uprist (24) (uprose), silly (36) (frail). Difference between 
ate and eat and eaten ? 

IY. Kin, din, quoth, mariner, kirk, bassoon, minstrelsy, prow, sheen, 
ken, vespers, averred, fathom, “ moon was at its edge,” jargoning, hermit, 
agony, vesper, hoar. 

Y. “We drop below the kirk” (i. e., as they sail over the sea which 
bends round the earth, the curvature prevents them first from seeing low 
objects, and then the high ones). “Mayst hear” (2) (“thou” omitted). 
“As who pursued” (for “as one who,” etc.). “Aye” (12) (always). 
“ Shrive ” and “ shrift ” (confess and confession). 


CXLII.—MAN A TOOL-USING ANIMAL. 

1. “ But on the whole,” continues our eloquent pro¬ 
fessor, “man is a tool-using animal. Weak in himself, 
and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the 
flattest-soled, of some half square-foot, insecurely enough; 
has to straddle out his legs, lest the very winds supplant 
him. 

2. “ Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crush¬ 
ing load for him. The steer of the meadow tosses him 
aloft like a waste rag. 

3. “Nevertheless, he can use tools, can devise tools. 
With these, the granite mountain melts into light dust 
before him. He kneads glowing iron as if it were soft 




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445 


paste. Seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his 
unwearying steeds. 

4. “ Nowhere do you find him without tools. Without 
tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.” 

5. Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the 
stream of oratory with a remark that this definition of 
the tool-using animal appears to us, of all that animal- 
sort, considerably the precisest and best. 

6. Man is called a laughing animal; but do not the 
apes also laugh, or attempt to do it ? and is the manliest 
man the greatest and oftenest laugher? The professor 
himself, as we said, laughed only once. 

7. Still less do we make of that other French defini¬ 
tion of the cooking animal; which, indeed, for rigorous 
scientific purposes is as good as useless. 

8. Can a Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies 
his steak by riding on it ? Again, what cookery does the 
Greenlander use, beyond stowing up his whale-blubber, 
as a marmot in the like case might do ? Or how would 
Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinoco Indians who, 
according to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests on the 
branches of trees, and for half the year have no victuals 
but pipe-clay, the whole country being under water ? 

9. But, on the other hand, show us the human being, 
of any period or climate, without his tools. Those very 
Caledonians, as we saw, had their flint-ball, and thong tp 
it, such as no brute has or can have. 

10. “ Man is a tool-using animal,” concludes the pro¬ 
fessor, in his abrupt way; “ of which truth clothes are 
but one example. And surely, if we consider the interval 
between the first wooden dibble fashioned by man and 


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those Liverpool steam-carriages, or the British House of 
Commons, we shall note what progress he has made. 

11. “He digs up certain black stones from the bosom 
of the earth, and says to them, 4 Transport me and this 
luggage at the rate of five-and-thirty miles an hour! ’ and 
they do it. He collects, apparently by lot, six hundred 
and fifty-eight miscellaneous individuals, and says to 
them, £ Make this nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger 
and sorrow and sin for us ! V and they do it.” 

Thomas Carlyle. 


For Preparation.—I. From the close of Chapter V. of “ Sartor Resartus, 
or the History of Clothes,” a work which humorously treats of the origin 
and significance of man’s institutions, customs, and habits, under the figure 
of clothing (spiritual clothing, as opposed to bodily clothing). It is full 
of profound thoughts, and written in elegant though difficult language— 
many passages being of transcendent sublimity. 

II. Knead§ (nedz), I'-ron (I'-urn), syl-en-tif'-i-e, vict'-ual§ (vit'iz). 

III. The words which oftenest change their forms to express distinctions 
or relations are the most important ones to learn thoroughly in order to 
prevent mistakes in the use of language. The eleven variations of the verb 
to be are therefore very important. More important are the words used as 
substitutes to prevent repetition of name-words (called “ pronouns ”); they 
are: I (with its forms : my, mine, me, we, our, ours, us), thou (thy, thine, 
thee, ye, you, your, yours), he (his, him, they, their, theirs, them), she (her, 
hers, they, etc.), it (its, they, etc.). Of each of these pronouns tell what 
distinctions it expresses: (a) person speaking, or spoken to or of; (b) sub¬ 
ject, or possessor, or object of relation or action ; (c) sex. 

IV. Stature, insecurely, bipeds, devise, thong, interval, miscellaneous, 
apparently. 

V. “The eloquent professor’’.(Teufelsdroeck). Make a list of man’s 

physical weaknesses as given (1 and 2)—(e. g., little strength, small size, 
stands on two small feet instead of four, can lift only three hundred-weight, 
etc.). Make a list, also, of what he can do with tools (3 and 4). “ May we 

interrupt the stream of oratory ” (Carlyle humorously pretends to quote 
remarks from an imagined professor, and then comments upon the quota¬ 
tions, like an editor ; in this way he can in part help to explain the thoughts 
to the reader). Make a list of the definitions of man named, and of the 



FIFTH READER. 


447 


reasons for adopting “ tool-using animal ” as the best. (Remember that a 
definition should express the likeness of the object to other beings—as, 
“ animal ” does—and also the difference which distinguishes it from all 
others—as “tool-using” does.) “Monsieur Ude” (the French cook who 
defined man as a cooking animal). “ Caledonians ” (of prehistoric times, 
who hunted their prey in the swamps, and killed it with a flint stone fas¬ 
tened to a leather thong). “ Of which truth clothes are but an example ” 
(10)—(for clothes are tools invented to keep in the bodily heat). “ Dibble” 
(a sharpened stick used by prehistoric man to make holes in the ground for 
the seed planted). (The “ steam-carriage ”—a material tool—and the “ House 
of Commons ”—an institution, a tool of a spiritual nature invented for the 
purpose of securing justice to men—are both called tools by Carlyle.) 
“Black stones” (11) (coal). “Transport me” (in a steam-carriage—the 
whole power being furnished by the coal). “ He collects ... by lot ” 
(apparently , for the ballot does not seem to be always wise in its elections). 
“ Six hundred and fifty-eight individuals ” (i. e., members of the House of 
Commons), “and says to them,” Govern the nation, “and they do it.” 
(What a wonderful machine man has invented in the Legislature !) Com¬ 
pare this piece with CXIII., on “ Inventions.” 


CXLIII.—ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF 
WELLINGTON. 

1. Bury the Great Duke 
With an empire’s lamentation ! 

Let us bury the Great Duke 
To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
Mourning when their leaders fall, 

Warriors carry the warrior’s pall, 

And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 

2. Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
Here, in streaming London’s central roar. 

Let the sound of those he wrought for, 

And the feet of those he fought for, 

Echo round his bones for evermore. 



448 


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3. Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, 

As fits an universal woe, 

Let the long, long procession go, 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 

And let the mournful martial music blow: 

The last great Englishman is low! 

4. Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 

Remembering all his greatness in the past. 

No more in soldier-fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 

O friends, our chief state-oracle is dead ! 

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 

The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 

Whole in himself, a common good ! 

5. Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 

Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 

Our greatest, yet with least pretence, 

Great in council and great in war, 

Foremost captain of his time, 

Rich in saving common sense, 

And, as the greatest only are, 

In his simplicity sublime. 

6. O good gray head which all men knew, 

O voice from which their omens all men drew, 

O iron nerve to true occasion true, 

O fallen at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew! 

Such was he whom we deplore. 

The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er: 

Tlie great world-victor’s victor will be seen no more. 

7. Peace! his triumph will be sung 
By some yet unmoulded tongue, 


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449 


Far on in summers that we shall not see. 

Peace! it is a day of pain 
For one about whose patriarchal knee 
Late the little children clung: 

O peace ! it is a day of pain 
For one upon whose hand and heart and brain 
Once the weight and fate of Europe hung: 

Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 

8. More than is of man’s degree 

Must be with us, watching here 
At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not we revere. 

We revere, and we refrain 
From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free 
For such a wise humility 
As befits a solemn fane : 

9. We revere, and while we hear 
The tides of Music’s golden sea 

Setting toward eternity, 

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 

Until we doubt not that for one so true 
There must be other nobler work to do 
Than when he fought at Waterloo, 

And victor he must ever be. 

10. For though the Giant Ages heave the hill 
And break the shore, and evermore 
Make and break, and work their will; 

Though world on world in myriad myriads roll 
Pound us, each with different powers, 

And other forms of life than ours, 

What know we greater than the soul ? 


450 


FIFTH READER. 


11. On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 

Hush! the “ Dead March ” wails in the people’s ears: 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: 
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

12. He is gone who seemed so great— 

Gone; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in state, 

And that he wears a truer crown 

Than any wreath that man can weave him. 

But speak no more of his renown ; 

Lay your earthly fancies down, 

And in the vast cathedral leave him— 

God accept him, Christ receive him ! 

Alfred Tennyson. 

For Preparation.— I. These passages are from the beginning and end, 
omitting, after the 6th stanza here, 189 lines in which the chief topic is the 
deeds of Wellington (a comparison with Nelson, his victories in Spain and 
at Waterloo, and a reference to his services as statesman). The extract 
here given contains about one-third of this great ode—“ a more magnificent 
monument than any or all the histories that record the commander’s life,” 
as Emerson says. Date of the death of Wellington ? Explain the allu¬ 
sions to his history. 

II. Mourn'-ing, war'-rior§ (wor'yurz), g-eli'-o, wr6ught (rawt), -erowd, 
mar'-tial (-shai), fash'-ion (-un), am-bi'-tious (-shus), -eoun'-cil, trl'-umph, 
tongue (tung), pa-tri-aroh'-al, weight (wat). 

III. Mark the feet and accented syllables of the 1st, 7th, and 12th 
stanzas. {See CL) 

IV. Lamentation, pall, deplore, pageant, oracle, enduring, moderate, 
resolute, amplest, pretence, sublime, simplicity, omens, unmoulded, solem¬ 
nity, refrain, revere, humility, fane, myriad, yawns, bereave, cathedral, ode. 

V. Notice how Tennyson unites a perfect command of the external 
rhythm—or the harmony based on sound and equal intervals of time—and 



FIFTH HEADER. 


451 


of the internal rhythm—rhyming of mental pictures through tautology, 
synonyms, antithesis, and correspondence of individual and its species. 
(See CIII., CXIX., CXLI., CXLIV., notes.) Parallelism: “Bury . . . great 
Duke . . . empire’s lamentation.” “ Bury . . . great Duke . . . mourn¬ 
ing . . . mighty nation.” “ In soldier-fashion will he greet ” (the soldier 
does not bow or bend his body, but raises his hand as if to take off his 
hat). “ We revere and we refrain” (8) (refrain even from speaking of his 
great battles, out of a still higher respect and delicacy; for sometimes 
silence is greater praise than words. If we name his battles, it detracts 
from him, for it assumes that these battles are not known by everybody, 
and therefore need some mention). “ The force he made his own being 
here” (12) (cannot be lost to him in death, and so) “we believe him” 
“ something far advanced in state ” (i. e., immortal). 


CXLIV.—THE EXEQUIES OF MIGNON. 

1. The abbe called them in the evening to attend the 
exequies of Mignon. The company proceeded to the Hall 
of the Past. They found it magnificently ornamented 
and illuminated. The walls were hung with azure tapes¬ 
try almost from ceiling to floor, so that nothing hut the 
friezes and socles, above and below, were visible. 

2. On the four candelabras in the corner large wax- 
lights were burning; smaller lights were in the four 
smaller candelabras placed by the sarcophagus in the mid¬ 
dle. Near this stood four boys, dressed in azure with 
silver; they had broad fans of ostrich-feathers, which 
they waved above a figure that was resting upon the sar¬ 
cophagus. 

3. The company sat down. Two invisible choruses 
began in a soft musical recitative to ask, u Whom bring 
ye us to the still dwelling \ ” The four boys replied, with 
lovely voices: u ’Tis a tired playmate whom we bring 
you. Let her rest in your still dwelling, till the songs 
of her heavenly sisters once more awaken her.” 



452 


FIFTH READER. 


4. Chorus —Firstling of youth in our circle, we wel¬ 
come thee! with sadness welcome thee! May no boy, 
no maiden follow! Let age only, willing and composed, 
approach the silent Hall, and in the solemn company re¬ 
pose this one dear child! 

5. Boys —Ah, reluctantly we brought her hither! 
Ah, and she is to remain here! Let us, too, remain ; let 
us weep—let us weep upon her bier! 

6. Chorus —Yet look at the strong wings! Look at 
the light, clear robe! How glitters the golden band 
upon her head! Look at the beautiful, the noble re¬ 
pose ! 

7. Boys —Ah! the wings do not raise her. In the 
frolic-game, her robe flutters to and fro no more. When 
we bound her head with roses, her looks on us were kind 
and friendly. 

8. Chorus —Cast forward the eye of the spirit! 
Awake in your souls the imaginative power, which car¬ 
ries forth what is fairest, what is highest—Life, away be¬ 
yond the stars. 

9. Boys —But ah! we find her not here. In the gar¬ 
den she wanders not; the flowers of the meadow she 
plucks no longer. Let us weep—we are leaving her here! 
Let us weep, and remain with her! 

10. Chorus —Children, turn back into life! Your 
tears let the fresh air dry, which plays upon the rush¬ 
ing water. Fly from night! Hay, and pleasure, and 
continuance, are the lot of the living. 

11. Boys —Up! Turn back into life! Let the day 
give us labor and pleasure, till the evening brings us 
rest, and the nightly sleep refreshes us. 


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463 


12. Chorus —Children, hasten into life! In the pure 
garments of beantj, may Love meet you with heavenly 
looks, and with the wreath of immortality! 

13. The boys had retired. The abbe rose from his 
seat and went behind the bier. “ It is the appointment,” 
said he, “ of the man who prepared this silent abode, that 
each new tenant of it shall be introduced with a solemnity. 
After him, the builder of this mansion, the founder of 
this establishment, we have next brought a young stranger 
hither; and thus already does this little space contain 
two altogether different victims of the rigorous, arbi¬ 
trary, and inexorable death-goddess. 

14. “ By appointed laws we enter into life; but for 
the duration of our life there is no law. The weakest 
thread will spin itself to unexpected length; and the 
strongest is cut suddenly asunder by the scissors of the 
Fates, delighting, as it seems, in contradictions. 

15. “ Of the child, whom we have here committed to 
her final rest, we can say but little. It is still uncertain 
whence she came. Her parents we know not; the years 
of her life we can only conjecture. Her deep and closely- 
shrouded soul allowed us scarce to guess at its interior 
movements. There was nothing clear in her, nothing 
open, But her affection for the man who had snatched her 
from the hands of a barbarian. 

16. “ This impassioned tenderness, this vivid grati¬ 
tude, appeared to be the flame which consumed the oil of 
her life. The skill of the physician could not save that 
fair life, the most anxious friendship could not lengthen 
it. But if art could not stay the departing spirit, it has 
done its utmost to preserve the body and withdraw it 
from decay. A balsamic substance has been forced 
through all the veins, and now tinges, in place of blood, 


4S4 


FIFTH READER. 


these cheeks too early faded. Come near, my friends, 
and view this wonder of art and care! ” 

IT. He raised the veil. The child was lying in her 
angel’s dress, as if asleep, in the most soft and graceful 
posture. They approached, and admired this show of 
life. Wilhelm alone continued sitting in his place; he 
was not able to compose himself. What he felt he durst 
not think; and every thought seemed ready to destroy 
his feeling. For the sake of the marchese, the speech 
had been pronounced in French. That nobleman came for¬ 
ward with the rest, and viewed the figure with attention. 

18. The abbe thus proceeded: “ With a holy con¬ 
fidence, this kind heart, shut up to men, was continually 
turned to its God. Humility—nay, an inclination to abase 
herself externally—seemed natural to her. She clave with 
zeal to the Catholic religion, in which she had been born 
and educated. Often she expressed a quiet wish to sleep 
in consecrated ground; and, according to the usage of 
the Church, we have, therefore, consecrated this marble 
coffin, and the little earth which is hidden in the cushion 
that supports her head. 

19. “ With what ardor did she, in her last moments, 
kiss the image of the Crucified, which stood beautifully 
figured on her tender arm with many hundred points ! ” 
So saying, he stripped up her right sleeve; and a cruci¬ 
fix, with marks and letters round it, showed itself in blue 
upon the white skin. 

20. The marchese looked at this with eagerness, 
stooping down to view it more intensely. “ O God 1 ” 
cried he, as he stood upright, and raised his hands to 
heaven. “ Poor child ! Unhappy niece ! Do I meet 
thee here! What a painful joy to find thee, whom we 
had long lost hope of—to find this dear frame, which we 


FIFTH READER. 


433 


had long believed the prey of fishes in the ocean, here 
preserved, though lifeless! I assist at thy funeral, splen¬ 
did in its external circumstances, still more splendid 
from the noble persons who attend thee to thy place of 
rest. And to these,” added he, with a faltering voice, 
“ so soon as I can speak, I will express my thanks.” 

21. Tears hindered him from saying more. By the 
pressure of a spring, the abbe sank the body into the 
cavity of the marble. Four youths, dressed as the boys 
had been, came out from behind the tapestry, and, lifting 
the heavy, beautifully ornamented lid upon the cofl&n, 
thus began their song. 

22. The Youths —“ Well is the treasure now laid up, 
the fair image of the Past! Here sleeps it in the mar¬ 
ble, undecaying. In your hearts, too, it lives, it works. 
Travel, travel back into life! Take along with you this 
holy earnestness: for earnestness alone makes life eter¬ 
nity.” 

23. The invisible chorus joined in with the last 
words; but no one heard the strengthening sentiment; 
all were too much busied with themselves, and the emo¬ 
tions which these wonderful disclosures had excited. The 
abbe and Natalia conducted the marchese out; Theresa 
and Lothario walked by Wilhelm. It was not till the 
music had altogether died away, that their sorrows, 
thoughts, meditations, curiosity, again fell on them with 
all their force, and made them long to be transported 
back into that exalting scene. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( Carlyle's Translation ). 

For Preparation.—I. From “ Wilhelm Meister,” Book VIII., Chapter 
viii. In XXXI., Mignon’s Song of Italy has been given. She dies young, 
after being taken into a noble family in Germany. During the stately 
funeral ceremonies here described, an Italian marquis, then on a visit 



456 


FIFTH READER. 


to this family, recognizes in the corpse his niece, who had been stolen 
from her home when an infant, and was supposed to have been drowned in 
the sea. 

II. Trav'-el, ear'-nest-ness (er'-), -eho'-rus, bu§'-ied (biz'ed), won'- 
der-ful, strength'-en-ing (strSngtb'n-), dis-clo§'-ure (-klo'zhur), Na-ta'-lia, 
scene, reg-i-ta-tive'. 

III. Write the pronouns that express only male persons;—females;— 
neither males nor females;—that express only the person speaking;—the 
person spoken to ;—spoken of;—all that express possession. 

IY. Eternity, invisible, sentiment, emotions, excited, meditations, ex¬ 
alting, transporting, friezes, socles, azure, tapestry, candelabras, sarcopha¬ 
gus, recitative, exequies, abbe, magnificently, ornamented, illuminated, 
ceiling, visible, reluctantly, repose, bier, imaginative, appointment, silent, 
victims, rigorous, arbitrary, duration, contradictions, committed, final, uncer¬ 
tain, conjecture, shrouded, gratitude, vivid, consumed, utmost, posture, 
compose, humility, consecrated, ardor, intensely, faltering. 

Y. “ Still dwelling ” (the tomb). Note the form of this recitative, modeled 
on the rhythmic parallelism of Hebrew poetry ( see CIII., CXIX.) (e. g., repe¬ 
tition of “ still dwelling ” and “ bring ” in question and response; correspond¬ 
ence in “ tired playmate—let her rest, till songs . . . awaken ”; repetition of 
welcome; antithesis of “no boy — age only,” etc.). Make a list of the repe¬ 
titions, synonyms, correspondences, and contrasts, used in these funeral 
services. “ Yet look at the strong wings.” (In a charade played by the 
children a few days before her death, she had personated an angel, and 
worn wings; in the angel’s dress she was laid out for burial.) Note the 
grief— expressed by the boys as representing the particular, the individual 
human ties of friendship and love—and the consolation —expressed by the 
invisible chorus, as representing the universal, the moral and religious prin¬ 
ciples that support man in sorrow. “ The man who prepared this silent 
abode ” (i. e., the “ Hall of the Past,” as it was named by the old noble 
who had founded it. He was the uncle of Natalia and Lothario, who 
inherited the castle from him.) 


CXLV.—THE CLOSING SCENE. 

1. Within his sober realm of leafless trees 
The russet Year inhaled the dreamy air, 

Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease, 
When all the fields are lying brown and bare. 




FIFTH READER. 


467 


2. The gray Barns looking from tlieir hazy hills 

O’er the dim waters widening in the vales, 

Sent down the air a greeting to the Mills, 

On the dull thunder of alternate flails. 

3. All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued; 

The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang low; 
As in a dream, the distant woodman hewed 
Ilis winter-log with many a muffled blow. 

A The embattled forests, ere while armed in gold, 

Their banners bright with every martial hue, 

How stood, like some sad beaten host of old, 
Withdrawn afar in Time’s remotest blue. 

5. On slumbrous wings the vulture tried his flight; 

The dove scarce heard his sighing mate’s com¬ 
plaint ; 

And like a star slow drowning in the light, 

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint. 

6. The sentinel-cock upon the hill-side crew— 

Crew twice, and all was stiller than before— 
Silent till some replying warder blew 

His alien horn, and then was heard no more. 

7. Where erst the jay, within the elm’s tall crest 

Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young, 
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest, 

By every light wind like a censer swung— 

8. Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves, 

The busy swallows, circling ever near, 

Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes, 

An early harvest and a plenteous year— 

20 


458 


FIFTH HEADER. 


9. Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast 
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn, 
To warn the reaper of the rosy east— 

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn. 

10. Alone from out the stubble piped the quail, 

And croaked the crow through all the dreary 
gloom; 

Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, 

Made echo to the distant cottage loom. 

11. There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; 

The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; 
The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, 

Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight. 

12. Amid all this, in this most cheerless air, 

And where the woodbine shed upon the porch 
Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there 
Firing the floor with his inverted torch— 

13. Amid all this, the center of the scene, 

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread, 
Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien 
Sat like a Fate, and watched the flying thread. 

14. She had known sorrow—he had walked with her, 

Oft -supped, and broke with her the ashen crust; 
And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir 
- Of his black mantle trailing in the dust. 

15. While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, 

Her country summoned, and she gave her all; 
And twice War bowed to her his sable plume— 
PegaVe the sword to rust upon the wall. 


FIFTH READER. 


459 


1G. Regave tlie sword—but not the hand that drew 
And struck for liberty its dying blow, 

Nor him who, to his sire and country true, 

Fell ’mid the ranks of the invading foe. 

IT. Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on, 

Like the low murmur of a hive at noon ; 

Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone 

Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune. 

18. At last the thread was snapped: her head was bowed ; 
Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene; 
And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, 
While death and winter closed the autumn-scene. 

Thomas Buchanan Read. 


For Preparation.— I. As the poet and painter, author of this piece, was 
a native of Pennsylvania, the fact suggests to us the probability that this 
unequalled poetic painting of the scenery and atmospheric effects of Indian 
summer, together with the impressions made by it upon a sensitive nature, 
is descriptive of a Pennsylvania landscape in November. 

II. RSalm, ha'-zy, field§, plSn'-te-oiis, pliCag'-ant (fez'-), g-eli'-o, $8n'- 
ter, ma'-tron, se-rene'. 

III. Give the forms of the verb he that agree with the person speaking;— 
persons spoken to;—spoken of ;—that express present time;—past time with 
have ; —past time without have. Use all the forms that you can with I; — 
with we ;—with thou ;—with you ;—with he ; —with they. 

IY. Sober, russet, year, inhaled, tanned, “alternate flails,” subdued, 
mellowed, hewed, embattled, erewliile, “ martial hue,” “ remotest blue,” 
vulture, sentinel, warder, alien, erst, crest, garrulous, unfledged, censer, fore¬ 
boding, rustic, charmed, “vernal feast,” stubble, loom, “inverted torch,” 
monotonous, mien, sable, sire, invading, tremulous, distaff. 

Y. “Russet Year,” “gray Barns,” and “Mills”—note personification. 
“ A greeting to the Mills ” (in the barns the grain was being threshed, to send 
to the mills for flour). “ Alternate flails ” (two men with flails stand at 
opposite ends of the threshing-floor and strike the grain in alternate blows). 
Note the pictures in this piece, every one easily painted, and every one hav- 



460 


FIFTH READER. 


ing the peculiar tones of “ Indian summer ” (c. g., “ the embattled for¬ 
ests,” “ on slumbrous wings,” etc. “ Where erst the jay ” (now gone with 
the swallows to the south for the winter). Why is the thistle-down called 
the “ ghost of flowers ” ? Why does he say spiders wove “ shrouds ” ? 
“Inverted torch” (a symbol of death). “Sat like a Fate” (the.Fates 
were represented as spinning the thread of human life). “ Twice W'ar bowed 
to her” (her husband falls in battle—in the Revolutionary War—and then 
her son). Compare this poem with Gray’s “ Elegy ” (first a long introduc¬ 
tion descriptive of scenery and surroundings, and meditations on them; and 
at last a person described in keeping with the scene. In Gray’s “ Elegy ” 
it is the pensive poet himself; in this it is the aged relict of a revolutionary 
chaplain). 


FIFTH READER. 


461 


SPELLING-LESSONS. 

The difficulty of spelling English words arises from uncertainty 
in regard to the combinations used to represent elementary sounds 
—the same sound (e) being represented in eleven different ways in 
the words ebb, dead, again, {esthetics, many, nonparoil, jeopardy, 
friend, bury, guest, says. Again, the words great, heart, wear, read, 
head, ocean, earth, present ea with seven sounds. 

The pupil will readily learn to spell all words in which the 
sounds are represented by the usual combinations of letters, by 
seeing them in print whenever he reads a book or paper. 

A list of words to spell should not be cumbered by the intro¬ 
duction of easy words, such as contain only the usual combinations, 
but should have only those that are difficult because of the excep¬ 
tional combinations of letters used. 

The spelling-book, then, may be a very small book, containing 
about fifteen hundred words. This small list of words should be 
so thoroughly learned that the pupil can spell orally or write every 
word in it without hesitation. This can be accomplished by the 
pupil of twelve years of age in six months time, having one lesson 
of twenty words a day to write from dictation, and using every 
fifth day for an oral review of all words from the beginning. 

This thorough drill on a few words will train the child’s faculty 
of observing unusual combinations of letters, and his memory thus 
trained will make him a good speller without spending any further 
time over the spelling-book. His memory will absorb and retain 
hard words wherever he sees them, just as a sponge absorbs and 
retains water. 

The words are arranged in the following list so as not to bring 
together a number of words of the same combination, and thereby 
paralyze the memory, as is too frequently the case in the lists given 
in spelling-books, which, for example, collect in one lesson ( the 
words ending in tion , or tain , or ture , or in clous , etc., thus giving 
to the pupil by the first word that is spelled a key to all that follows. 

Correct pronunciation is as important as correct spelling, and 
the rare combinations of letters are the ones most likely to be mis¬ 
pronounced. The following list contains the words liable to be 
mispronounced as well as misspelled, and even some words easy to 


462 


FIFTH READER. 


spell that are often mispronounced. For the sake of spelling and 
pronunciation, the following mode of analysis is recommended as 
an excellent auxiliary to the oral and written spelling-lesson. It 
should always be practised in connection with the reading-lesson, and 
with the hook open before the pupil, in preference to the usual plan. 

Spelling Analysis. —The pupils and teacher have reading-books 
or spelling-books open at the lesson. The pupils, in order of recita¬ 
tion, analyze the list of difficult words one after the other, thus: 

First Pupil—Groat , g-r-o-a-t (pronounces and reads its spelling 
from the book); it is a difficult word, because the sound aw is rep¬ 
resented by the rare combination oa; it is usually represented by 
aw or au (awl, fraud), and by o before r (born). This sound may 
be represented in six ways. 

Second Pupil—Police , p-o-l-i-c-e; it is a difficult word, because 
the sound e is represented by i, and not by one of the more fre¬ 
quent modes, e, ea, ee, ie, and ei. There are ten ways to represent 
this sound. The word is also more difficult to spell, because it 
represents the sound of s by ce. 

Third Pupil-r-Sacrifice, s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e; it is difficult, because 
the sound 1 (before f) is obscure, and may be represented by any 
one of twelve ways. The letter c in fee has here the sound of z, a 
very rare use of that letter. The word is liablo to be mispronounced 
sa-kri-fis or sak-ri-fis for sak-ri-fiz. 


A.—Table of Equivalents representing Elementary Sounds. 

I. —The sound of a is represented in twelve ways: 1. In many 

words by a (ale), ai (ail), and ay (bay); 2. In a few words by 
§1 (tbey), ei (veil), ea (break), au (gauge), ao (g5ol); aa (Aaron), 
e and ee (melee), ua (quadrille). 

II. —The sound of a is represented in four ways: In many words by 

a (at); in a few words by ai in plaid, ua (guarantee), aa (Canaan). 

III. —The sound of a is represented in six ways: In many words by 
a (father); in a few words by au (taunt), ea (heart), ua (guard), 
e (sergeant), aa (bazaar) ; ia is ya in billiards. 

IV. —The sound of a is represented in six ways: 1. In many words 
by & (care); 2. In a few words by ai (fair), ea (pear), ay (prayer), 
6 (th^re), 6i (their), a is the sound a (ask) followed by the gut¬ 
tural vowel-sound which clings to the smooth r (see below, No. 
XV.). 


FIFTH READER. 


463 


V.—The sound of a is represented only by a (ask) in a few words. 

YI.—The sound of a is represented in eight ways: 1. In many 
words by a (all), aw (awl), au (fraud), 6 (born); 2. In a few 
words by ou (bought), oa (broad), eo (George), ao (extraordi¬ 
nary). 

VII. —The sound of e is represented in thirteen ways: 1. In many 
words by e (eve), ea (beat), ee (beef), ie (chief); 2. In a few 
words by ei (deceive), i (marine), ey (key), se (Caesar), eo (people), 
uay (quay), ue (Portuguese), oi (turkois, turquoise), ce (Phoebus). 

VIII. —The sound of 6 is represented in twelve ways: 1. In many 
words by 6 (m&t), 6a (bread); 2. Jn a few words by ai)(said), 
ae (diaeresis), a (any), ei (heifer), So (leopard), iS (friend), u 
(bury), uS (guest), ay (says), ce (CEdipus), ie = yS in alien. 

IX. —The sound of I (a diphthong composed of the sounds a-'i, pro¬ 
nounced so briefly as to reduce them nearly to e-i [her, it]) is rep¬ 
resented in ten ways: 1. In many words by i (ice), y (by), ie 
(die); 2. In a few words by ui (guide), ei (height), uy (buy), ai 
(aisle), ye (rye), eye, ay (aye meaning yes)-^ oi = wi in choir. 

X. —The sound of i is represented in twelve w r ays: 1. In many 

words by 1 (it), y (lynx), ie (duties); 2. In a few by ui (build), 
ai (certain), u (busy), e (pretty), ee (been), o (women), ei (for¬ 
eign), ia (carriage), oi (tortoise); uy = wi in colloquy. 

XI. —The sound of 6 is represented in ten ways: 1. In many words 
by 6 (note), oa (boat), ow (blow); 2. In a few words by ou (four), 
oe (foe), oo (door), au (hautboy), ew (sew), eau (beau), eo (yeo¬ 
man) ; io = yo (folio). 

XII. —The sound of 6 is represented in four ways: 1. tn many 
words by 6 (nSt), a (was); in a few words by 6u (cough), 6w 
(knowledge); oi = w6 in memoir. 

XIII. —The sound of u (a diphthong composed of 1-66; the accent 
placed on the I gives the prevalent American pronunciation, 
placed on the 66 converts the i into a y-sound, and gives the cur¬ 
rent English sound) is represented in nine ways: 1. In many 
words by u (tube), ew (few); 2. In a few words by ue (hue), ui 
(juice), eu (neuter), ieu (lieu), l evv (view), eau (beauty), ua (man- 
tua-maker). 

XIV. —The sound of ii is represented in eight ways: 1. In many 
words by ii (but), 6 (son, and terminations in ion), ou (touch, 
and terminations in ous); 2. In a few words by oo (blood), Oe 
(does), oi (porpoise), io (cushion), eo (dungeon). 


464 


FIFTH READER. 


XV. —The sound A is represented in nine ways: 1 . In many words 
by ft (bfirn), e (her), I (first); 2. In a few words by ea (heard), 
o (work), oh (scohrge), y (myrtle), a (liar), ue (guerdon). This 
sound, like a in air (a in ask, and the guttural iih), is diphthongal, 
occasioned by the transmutation of the rough or trilled r to the 
smooth or palatal r, the effort expended in trilling the tongue 
having weakened into a guttural vowel-sound fth, heard as a 
glide from the previous vowel-sound to the r. Very careful 
speakers preserve enough of the original sounds of e, i, and y, to 
distinguish them from o or u, although the common usage, here 
and in England, is to pronounce them all alike. Smart says, 
“ Even in the refined classes of society in England sur, durt , 
turd , etc., are the current pronunciation of sir, dirt , tird; and, 
indeed, in all very common words it would be somewhat affected 
to insist on the delicate shade of difference.” The careful teacher 
will, however, practise his pupils in this delicate distinction 
enough to make them 'well acquainted with it. The same gut¬ 
tural vowel-sound hh occurs as a vanish after e (mere), i (fire), 
6 (more), u (pure), etc. 

XVI. —The sound of u is represented in eight ways: 1 . In many 
words by oo (bloom); 2 . In a few words by ou (group), o (do), 
u (rule), ew (grew), ewe (yu), ue (true), ui (fruit), oeu (manoeu¬ 
vre). This is the general sound of u after an r or sh sound, be¬ 
cause the first part of the diphthong (i-oo) is lost (after r), or 
absorbed (in s7i). 

XVII. —The sound of u is represented in four ways: 1 . In a few 
words by do (brook); 2. In a very few words by u (bush), ou 
(would), o (wolf). 

XVIII.—The diphthong 6 -i is represented by 61 (in cdil) and oy 
(boy). 

XIX. —The diphthong ou (bound) is represented also by ow (crowd). 

XX. —The sounds of g in gem, of g in get, of s in so, of § in wa§ 
of s in sell, of -e in -eat, of ch in child, of -eh in -chorus, of 9 I 1 in 
maghine, of x in ox, of ? in e$act (gz), of n in no, of n in Con¬ 
cord (kongkord), of th in thing, of th in the, are marked, when 
marked, as here indicated. 

XXI. —The sound of f is represented by ph (philosopher) and by 
gh (cough) in a few words. The sound of v is represented by 
f in of, ph (Stephen) in a few words. The sound sh is repre¬ 
sented by ti (nation), c (oceanic), s (nauseate), t (negotiation), ce 


FIFTH READER, 


465 


(ocean), ci (social), se (nauseous), si (tension), ti (captious), ch 
(chaise), sc (conscientious), sch (schorl), sci (conscience); xi = 
ksh in noxious, xu = kshu in luxury, su = shu in sure; zh is 
represented by si (fusion), zi (grazier), s (symposium), ti (transi¬ 
tion), ssi (abscission), g (rouge), zu = zhu in azure. 


B.—Table of Sounds represented by Letters and Combinations. 

1. a—eight sounds: ale, at, alms, ask, care, all, was, any. 

2. e—five sounds: eve, mSt, th&re, her, pretty (i). 

3. i—four sounds: Ice, it, fatigue, fir. 

4. o—eight sounds: no, nor, n5t, move, wolf, work, son, women. 

5. u—eight sounds: use (yu), cube, btit, rude, pull, fdr, busy, bury. 

6. y—three sounds: by, lyric, myrrh. 

7. aa = a, a, a; ae = e, 8; ai = a, &, a, 8,1, 1; ay = a, &, i, I; ao 

= a, a; au = a, a, a, 6; aw = a; aye = a; awe = a. 

8. ea = a, 4, a, e, 8, u, e; ee = e, i, a; ei = a, a, e, 8, I,!; ey = 
a, e, T; oo = 6, e, 8, 6, ti; eu = u, yu, yti; ew = u, o, u, yu; 
eau = o, ti; ewe = yu; eye = I; eou = yd. 

9. ia = I, S, ya, ya; ie = e, e, r, !, y8, yh; io = yo, yd, ii; iu = 
yu; ieu = ti; iew = ti; iou = yh. 

10. oa = 6, a; oe = e, &, o, u, u; oi = 6i, e, l, ti, wT, wa; oeu = ti; 
oo = o, o, 6, ti; ou = ou, a, o, o, o, ti, ti; ow = 6u, o, 5; oy 
= 61. 

11. ua = a, a, a, ti, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa; ue = e, 8, ti, we, w8, u, u, 

yu, ui = e, r, 1, u, wl, wi, wl, we; uo = wo, w8; uy = e, I; 

uay = e; uea = we; uee = we; uoy = w6i; uay = wa. 


4 66 


FIFTH READER. 


£es-th8t'i-es 
nbn-pa-reil' (-rSl') 
syn'od 

■ebn'duit (-dlt) 

tri'glyph 

hug-gar' 

XSn'o-phon 

Xer'xeg 

li-tig'ious 

ghar'la-tan (sh) 

IV. 

u-biq'ui-ty 

bt-i-qu&tte' (-ket') 

la-e'quer (lak'or) 

qua-drille' 

u-nique' (-neck') 

«hrys'a-lis 

-ehrys'o-lito 

dr&eh'ma 

ou'-eha-rist 

syn'-ehro-notis 

VII. 

in-trigue' 

-eai'tiff 

bdell'ium (dsr-) 
re-doubt' (-dout') 
-eo-a-lSs^e' 
del-i-quSsQo' 
phbs-phor-8s£e' 
st&dt'hold-er (stat'-) 
fts-sign-ee' (-si-no') 
gno'mon (no'-) 


.—Ljsss Common Words. 


II. 

bs'se-ohs 

iir-gil-la'ceods (sh) 
far-i-na'-ceous (sh) 
-ere-ta'ceous (sh) 
sap-o-na'ceeiis (sh) 
£e-ta'ceotis (sh) 
am-bro'gia (-zha) 
in-cig'ion (-slzh'-) 
in-cig'ure (-sizh'-) 
fore-olog'ure (-kiozh'-) 

V. 

t&oh'ni-e-al 
maoh-i-na'tion 
mSeh-a-m'cian (-nish'j 
dis'ti-eb 
su'mft-eh 
bis-s8x'tile 
By-zan'tme 
nSo'tar-ine 
par'a-site 
per'qui-gite 

VIII. 

hem'or-rhage 
mne-mon'i-es (ne-) 
pnou-mat'ios (nu-) 
psy--eh61'o-gy (si-) 
im-prbmp'tu 
vis'count (vr-) 
chas'ten (-s'n) 
in-veigh' (-va') 
phthl'sis (thr-) 
plitkis'i-e (tiz'-) 


III. 

ro'ge-ate 
u'gu-ry (-zhu-) 

Ple'ia-deg 

U'ra-niis 

bst'u-a-ry 

man- u-mis'sion (-rnish'-) 

mSn-su-ra'tion 

quSr'u-loiis 

ob-liq'ui-ty 

sSq-ues-tra'tion 

VI. 

fitl'li-ble 

i-ras'^i-blo 

-eu'ti-elo 

bea'gle 

tit'tle 

o'elire 

sliek'el (k'l) 

bSn'i-gon 

fugue (fug) 

colleague 

IX. 

prO-t6-g6' (-ta-zha') 

re-vers'i-ble 

stip'ple-ment 

p6d'i-ment 

gl5ss'a-ry 

mer'$e-na-ry 

roge'ma-ry 

lag'er-ate 

lit'i-gate 

0£-6r'di-um 


X. 

tra-pe'zf-um 

par-si-mo'ni-ous 

lie-ll'a-e-al 

zo-dVae-al 

des'ue-tude (-we-) 

ra-pag'i-ty 

reg-i-prbg'i-ty 

ve-rag'i-ty 

an-i-mbs'i-ty 

po-ros'i-ty 

XIII. 

fal-la'cious 

-eon-sci-en'tioiis (-shl-) 

fla-gl'tious 

ar-ti-fi'cial 

pro-vm'cial 

-eon-se-quSn'tial 

yir-eum-stan'tial 

ple-be'ian 

an-nl-M-la/tion 

as-sas-sin-a'tion 

XVI. 

sdl'e-gi§m 

spig'ot 

sterile 

tal'i§-man 

ton'i-e 

vap'id 

-eon-tjiml-nate 

-eor-rob'o-rate 

fa-nat'i-Qi§m 

ge- 61 'o-gy 


FIFTH READER. 


467 


XI. 

an'te-date 

ftn-te-pe-nult' 

an'ti-typo 

ter'ti-a-ry (-shl-) 

tdr'gid 

-eon'fer-enge 

m-ad-vert'enge 

re-diin'dant 

an'nu-lar 

b-e'u-lar 


XII. 

a«-gede' 

-eui-ras-sier' 

r&g'i-due 

ar'mis-tige 

mor'tise 

e-phSm'e-ris 

-erus-ta'ceous (sh) 

fo-li-a/ceous 

lier-ba/ceobs 

aus-pi'cious 


XIV. 


XV. 


ne-go-ti-a'tion (-shi-) 

pro-pi-ti-a'tion (-shl-) 

vag-il-la/tion 

a-pos'ta-sy 

hy-po-e'ri-sy 

pleu'ri-sy 

va«'n*um 

ld'i-om 

mar'tyr-dom 

o'-ekrey 


an'o-dyne 

ap'a-thy 

bal'us-ter 

bodlge 

gen'o-tapk 

-eodl-gil 

dil'a-to-ry 

mon'o-dy 

nbml-nal 

par'o-dy 


XVII. 

im-pan'el 

mo-nop'o-ly 

rao-ndt'o-ny 

an'no-tate 

ap'po-§ite 

com'ment 

diffi-dent 

dis'so-nant 

fer'ret 

galley 


XVIII. 

gos'sa-mer 

mollusk 

par'ri-glde 

pit'tange 

syllo-gi§m 

tan'nin 

tSn'nis 

train'm el 

war'rant 

ge-dilla 


468 


FIFTH HEADER. 


XIX. 

di-lem'ma 

per-en'ni-al 

a-bey'ange 

a-bndg'ment 

ab-ste'mi-oiis 

a-e-gel'er-ato . 

ad'e-quate 

ad-o-lbs'genge 

ad-ven-tl'tious 

a-er-ost&t'i-es 

XXII. 

gm'ii a-bar 

-eol-lat'er-al 

-eol-on-nade' 

-eom'mis-sa-ry 

-eon-fed'er-a-gy 

-eon-san-guin'i-ty 

-eon-sid'er-ate 

-eon-sol'a-to-ry 

-eon-tem'po-ra-ry 

•eor-po're-al 

XXV. 

ge-lat/i-nous 

gSr'mi-nato 

glu'ti-nous 

guar-an-tee' (gar-) 

liet-er-o-ge'ne-ous 

hl-e-ro-glypb'i-e 

ho-mo-ge'ne-oiis 

hy-per'bo-lo 

Id-i-o-syn'-era-sy 

m-ean-des'gengo 


XX. 

al-i-mbnt'a-ry 

ara'ber-gris (-grees) 

a-nath'e-ma 

non-clia-lance (nong-sha- 

an-tip'a-thy [longss') 

a-po-e'a-lypse 

ar'mis-tige 

au-rif'er-oiis 

Sv-a-ri'ciotis 

biir'be-euc 


XXIII. 

-ere'o-sote 
■erSs'gent 
-erit'i-gi§m 
sa'ti-ate (-shi-) 
da-e'tyl 

de-elain'a-to-ry 

def'i-nito 

de-riv'a-tlve 

des'per-ate 

des'ti-tute 


XXVI. 

in-dict'ment (-dir-) 

in-dig'e-nous 

in-nu-bn'do 

in-stall'ment 

in-vei'gle 

lr-re-triev'a-ble 

I-s5s'ge-le§ 

jeop'ard-y 

lab'o-ra-to-ry 

lab'y-rintli 


XXI. 

ba§'i-lisk 

ba-zaar' 

ben-e-fi'ci-a-ry (-ski-) 

bi-tu'mi-noiis 

bre-vier' 

-eiir'ti-lage 

-eaout'cbou-e (koo'chdok) 
gel-ib'a-gy 
-elirys'a-lis 
gi-e'a-trigo 

XXIV. 

do-te'ri-o-rate 

di§-cern'ment (-zern'-) 

dls-ha-bille' (-blT) 

bm'is-sa-ry 

em-pyr'e-al 

cn-dorse'ment 

eu'pbo-ny 

e^-ag-cr-ba'tion 

ex-lior-ta'tion 

flag'eo-16t (flaj'o-) 

XXVII. 

Ic-gii'mi-nous 

liq'ui-date 

mal'le-a-ble 

mallge 

mar'tyr 

mas-quer-ade' (-ker-) 

may'or-al-ty 

met-a-mor'pboso 

mct-a-phys'i-es 

mis'gel-la-ny 


FIFTH READER. 


469 


XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


mis'sion-a-ry (mish'un-) 

myr'mi-don (“<*'-) 

mys'ti-Qigm 

nftr'ra-tive 

nSg'a-tive 

z&al'ot 

6«'^i-put 

oe-sbpb'a-giis 

o-le-ag'i-no&s 

6r'gie§ (-j“) 


ox'y-gen 

pal'li-a-tive 

par'ox-ygm 

p&r'i-gee 

p&r-e-gri-na'tion 

pe-riph'er-y 

phra-§e-51'o-gy 

piqu'an-Qy (P ik '-> 

pla'gi-a-rigm 

p51'y-gl5t 


XXXI. 

ste're-o-type 

ster'to-roiis 

su-per-nu'me-ra-ry 

sdr'gin-gle 

sy-e'o-phant 

ther-a-peu'ties 

tra-di'tion-a-ry 

tran-SQend-Snt'al 

u-biq'ui-to&s 

va'ri-e-gate 

XXXIV. 

vSs'i-ele 
rig-i-bil'i-ty 
ver-mi-Qel'li 
&e-eli'ma-ted 
a-eou'sti-e (-kow'-) 
a-dii'gio (-jo) 
al'co-ran 
Ptbl'e-my (t6i'-> 
pseu'do-nym (-su/-) 
al-le'gro 


XXXII. 

vgn'er-ate 

ver-sa-til'i-ty 

vlrt'u-al-ly 

zo'o-pbyte 

G8t'ty§-burg 

Qhey'enne (sh) 

Pom-pe'i-i (-pe'yi) 

Aix la Qha-pSlle' (aks) 
G8of'frey 
Jacques (zhak) 

XXXV. 

al'ter-eate 
boat'swain (bo'sn) 

-eol'an-der 

-ebm'plai-gangie 

-eon-nois-seur' (-nis-sur') 

e-lyg'i-um (-Hzh'-) 

em-pir'i-e 

e-ner'vate 

ep-i-eu're-an 


XXX. 

por'rin-ger 

por'phy-ry 

pre§'by-ter 

pr5p'a-gate 

pros'e-lyto 

pu-sil-lan'i-mous 

quI-Ss'^ent 

rem-i-ms'genge 

re-prieve' 

s&r'aph-ine 

XXXIII. 

r&e-ti-lin'e-al 

des-i-e-ea'tion 

al'ka-line 

lou'is d’or (lo'o'e ddr) 

fa/kir (-ker) 

ba-e-eha-na'li-an 

leh-thy-61'o-gy 

se'gis 

s-eir'rhus 

sub-poe'naed 

XXXVI. 

e-pit'o-me 

e-qua-mm'i-ty 

Sx'or-Qlge 

ex-po'nent 

Sx'tant 

ex-t8m'po-re 

fe'tifh (sh) 

fl-na'le (fe-na'la) 

gal'ax-y 

gun'wale (-nei) 


470 

XXXVII. 

hillf'pen-ny (haf'-) 
hal'i-but 
he-gi'ra 
lim'd oo 
hos'pi-ta-ble 

I'dyl 

il-lu'slve 

i'o-dine 

I-o'ta 

ir-r&f'ra-ga-ble 

XL. 

sub'lu-na-ry 

sub'tile 

t&g'i-thrn 

tete-a-t^te (tat-a-tat') 

thrall'dom 

trip'ar-tlte 

tri'pod 

tro'phy 

tru'-eu-lent 

u-to'pi-an 

XLI 11 

ey'ry 

fa-e-sim'i-le 
fal'chion (-chun) 
fal'-eon (faw'kn) 
fal'-eon-ry (faw'kn-) 
ga§'e-oiis 
gym-na'§ium 
hbgg'liead 
hbl'i-day 
lio'ly-day 




FIFTH READER. 


XXXVIII. 

ir-r&fu-ta-ble 

ir-rep'a-ra-ble 

ir-rbv'o-ea-ble 

ls'o-late 

l-so-therm'al 

I-tal'ian 

I-t&l'i-e 

jo-e'und 

ka-lel'do-seope 

ma-e'ro--e5§m 


XXXIX. 

ini'-ero~eS§m 

mbl'e-eule 

na-ive-t6 (-ta') 

nes'gienge (nesh'ens) 

o-bei'sange 

pome-gr&n'ate (et) 

pbt'sherd 

s&d'a-tive 

sopli'is-try 

s5p-o-rif'i« 


XLI. 


X LI I. 


vi'bra-to-ry 

vm'di-ea-tive 

ab-do'men 

bora'bast 

buoy'ant (bwoy'-) 

«a-m&l'o-pard 

sha-rade' (sh) 

-eon-tour' 

-eu'po-la 

diph'thong (dif -) 


dis'pu-ta-ble 

dls'pu-tant 

6-clat' (a-kla') 

e-qua-to'ri-al 

6-qui-no-e'tial 

Eu-ro-pe'an 

e^-S-e'u-tive 

e.y-ha-la'tion 

ex'qui-§ite 

ex-tra6r'di-na-ry (-tror'-) 


XLIV. 

hos'tler (hos'ler) 

lau'da-num 

lSg'atp 

le'gend 

lSg'end-a-ry 

li'-ehen 

ly-Qe'ura 

ma-dei'ra 

m&m'oir (-wor) 

mi-rage' (-razh') 


XLV. 

my-tbbl'o-g^ 
Pall-mall (pel-mSi') 
Phll'o-mbl 
pique (peok) 
pla-teau' (-to') 
poign'ant (poin'-) 
prith'ee 
psillm'ist (aiim'-) 
py-ram'i-dal 
rhythm 


FIFTH READER. 


471 


XLV!. 


XLVII. 


XLVill. 


ser'geant (sar'-) 

(2) ascent 

(2) calendar 

south'er-ly 

(2) augur 

(2) canon 

three-pengie (thrip'-) 

(2) aught 

(2) capitol 

waist'coat 

(2) bail 

(2) castle 

ap'oph-thegm 

(2) bass 

(2) cede 

blv'ouSc (-wak) 

(2) beech 

(2) ceil 

e$-hil'a-rate 

(2) berth 

(3) scent 

m&n'tua-maker 

(2) bred 

(4) cere 

quan'da-ry 

(2) brooch 

(4) sere 

triph'thong (trlf'-) 

(2) borough 

(2) chagrin 


XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 

(2) choir 

(3) feign 

(2) kill 

(3) cite 

(2) feint 

(2) nave 

(3) site 

(2) fort 

(3) gnu 

(2) clause 

(2) frieze 

(2) lax 

(2) choler 

(2) gauze 

(2) lief 

(2) complement 

(2) horde 

(2) leek 

(2) chord 

(2) aisle 

(2) levee 

(2) council 

(2) indict 

(2) lynx 

(2) discrete 

(2) colonel 

(2) lode 

(2) draught 

(2) quay 

(2) marshal 

LI 1. 

Llll. 

LIV. 

(2) mien 

(2) wreak 

(2) soul 

(3) mete 

(2) wrest 

(2) style 

(2) meter 

(4) right 

(2) straight 

(2) mite 

(4) wright 

(2) sweet 

(2) pier 

(2) wrote 

(2) wave 

(2) pendant 

(2) wry 

(2) yolk 

(2) pendent 

(2) seignior 

(2) ewer 

(2) poll 

(2) serf 

(2) steppe 

(2) pour 

(3) sheer 

(2) scull 

(3) raze 

(2) slight 

(2) crews 




CTTJST PUBLISHED. 






Consisting of Five Books . 

By Wm. T. Harris, LL. D., Supt. of Schools, St. Louis, Mo. ; Andrew 
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Appletons’ First Reader. 90 pages. 

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These Readers, while avoiding extremes and one-sided tendencies, combine 
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lessons of self-help, self-dependence, the habit of application), exercises that 
develop a practical command of correct forms of expression, good literary taste, 
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The high rank which the authors have attained in the educational field and 
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Of Prof. Bailey, Instructor of Elocution in Yale College, it is needless to 
speak, for he is known throughout the Union as being without a peer in his pro¬ 
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D. APPLETON <Sr- CO., Publishers , 

549 k 551 Broadway, New York. 









PRIMERS 

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18mo. Flexible cloth, 45 cents each. 


I.—Edited by Profs. HUXLEY, ROSCOE, and BALFOUR STEWART. 


SCIENCE 

Chemistry. H. E. Roscoe. 

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Physiology. M. Foster. 

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PR IMERS. 


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